Redemption Of Poison Ivy
by Hyperwryter88
Summary: AU. Poison Ivy survives Scarecrow's cloudburst and continues to assist Batman against the invasion of Gotham. I don't own any DC Comics things. Slight spoilers to anyone who hasn't played or finished AK game so read at your own risk. BatmanxPoison Ivy pairing.
1. Ivy Survives

**Hello readers. As I stated before, I'm restarting my story to make it better and undo some errors I made previously and here's the first chapter.**

 **You know this already, but, as FF rules state, at least I think they do, I have to type the following sentence every time I post a new fic and it's only once: I don't own DC stuff, characters, games, whatever.**

* * *

Pamela Lilian Isley, better known to all as "Poison Ivy", fluttered her eyelids open. Her vision was blurry and her senses were disoriented and she could barely see even the ground she was on. She still remained on the tower where she performed her last stand.

Her appearance was sickly-looking. Her skin was dark green and yellow streams flowed in her veins, leftovers of Scarecrow's toxin that now flowed in her system. The flowers in her hair looked dead and her hair was no longer in a bun, it was free and tangled.

She was a complete mess.

It took a minute for her vision to fully restore itself back to normal and when it did, she saw that she was alone.

She last remembered Batman cradling her in his arms after she collapsed from absorbing all of Scarecrow's fear toxin into her own body through the giant plant she controlled during the battle for Gotham.

The last thing she said to him was "Nature Always Wins." before everything went black.

And now here she was, still alive and breathing. Batman was nowhere to be seen and Ivy figured that he assumed she had died and moved on with his mission of stopping Scarecrow and possibly that newcomer who resembled Batman and harbored an unknown deep hatred for the Dark Knight.

Just then, an announcement came on one of the city's electronic billboards.

It was Scarecrow.

From what was heard, he was bragging to Batman about Ivy's death and how it just made Batman look more like a bad charm to all who sided with him and that just because his gas cloud was gone would not mean he was done with his work.

Ivy couldn't believe what she heard. She learned that the gas cloud was truly gone, meaning that she and Batman had succeeded. He also believed she was dead.

He was wrong about that last part. The joke was on him.

She tried to stand up, but she was too weak from her ordeal to do that and plopped back on the ground. So she crawled over to the edge of the rooftop and saw what became of Gotham City.

Scarecrow was right in his message. There was no toxin cloud in sight and in its place was pollen raining down everywhere as a result of her plant releasing them prior to her finishing her task.

Below on the streets were bodies, victims of Crane's attack. Some were dead, others were unconscious. If this had happened during the events at Arkham Asylum or Arkham City, Ivy would laugh at the sight of dead people.

Not tonight.

Ivy suddenly realized that she needed to contact Batman and let him know that she was still alive.

Using what little strength she could muster, Ivy crawled over to the video transmitter Batman had given her earlier and picked it up.

She pressed a button and the transmitter's video screen lit up, showing black. Batman's radio was either off or on hold.

Either way, Ivy spoke.

"Batman? Batman, can you hear me?" she asked.

For a moment, nothing happened.

"Batman?" Ivy asked again.

Then the screen received a transmission from its opposite end and showed the cowl-covered face of the Dark Knight.

"Batman!" Ivy exclaimed.

"Ivy? Is that you?" he asked, stunned to see her alive.

"Yes, it's me." said Ivy.

But I thought you died." he said.

"No, I'm still among the living. I'm just severely weakened at this point. I barely regained consciousness in time to hear Scarecrow make another one of his boring rants a few seconds ago. He bragged about my so-called demise." she said.

"I see. Shall I pick you up?" he asked.

"I'd like that very much." she said.

"Alright. Stay where you are and away from enemy eyes until I return. I'm about to apprehend Penguin and then I'll come for you when I'm done." he told her.

"Okay. I'll wait here until then, take your time with your job. It's not like I can go anywhere in my condition anyway." said Ivy.

"Okay." he said and the video went blank.

Ivy put the device down and crawled back to her destroyed plant to rest until Batman came back for her.

She looked at the tree and sighed in sadness. This plant, one that's been around since prehistoric times, the tree that became Ivy's tool of saving Gotham, was dead.

Scarecrow was the cause of this and she vowed to make him pay dearly for what his deathcloud had done to the tree and to her.

While Batman and his fellow crimefighting allies may not share the same care she has for plants as they do for people, but at least he and they were not heartless killers and thieves like the city's supercriminals.

She remembered that she herself was one of them from all the things she had done ever since she became a plant metahuman and, for once in her life after her mutation, she was now beginning to feel remorse for it all. All the people she controlled, killed, mutated in the name of her personal crusade. These were starting to get to her. It seems that the events of tonight had sparked a change in her, a near-death experience.

After thinking, she slumped herself beside the dead tree to wait for Batman to arrive and dozed off.

She later woke up to the sound of a voice calling out to her. It was Batman and he was crouched to her eye level.

"Ivy." he said.

Her eyes fluttered open and closed rapidly.

"Batman?" she asked.

"Yes, it's me. I'm here." he said.

Ivy slumped to the ground on her side, groaning in pain, and Batman held her and when he did, she lightly slapped him across the face.

"Sorry. I needed to check if you were real and not the gas playing tricks on me." she explained.

"I'm real." he said.

"What happened?" she asked.

"You passed out after absorbing all of Crane's toxin. It nearly killed you and I assumed it did until you contacted me." he said.

"How long was it since I last saw you?" she asked.

"About half an hour." he told her.

Ivy tried to sit up, but was too weak to move. She barely was able to crawl to the edge and radio device earlier.

"Easy Ivy." said Batman.

He helped her into a sitting position by placing a hand on her back and gently pushed her upward until she was sitting up.

"Thanks." Ivy said.

She looked around Gotham, amazed at what she had accomplished.

"Funny. Ever since I became a powerful being, I spent every waking moment of my time attempting to get rid of the city's human population to make room for my plants and instead I wind up saving the very species I hated so much from imminent doom from a threat bigger than I ever was." Ivy said.

"You did a good thing, Ivy." said Batman.

"I believe I did and you know something? It actually feels great. I feel proud of my accomplishment. While some look down on nature, others embrace it. Perhaps I was wrong about humankind, after all. Wow, that was something I thought I would never say." she said.

For a moment, the two stayed there watching the city. Not as foes this time, but as two people who put their differences aside to put an end to a devastating chemical attack that affected them both and survived. Who would have thought that Poison Ivy, Gotham's most dangerous and feared metahuman, and Batman, Gotham's most respected yet scary hero, would perform a heroic feat and be standing side by side as allies rather than as enemies?

But it was not over yet. The gas cloud may be gone, but its creator was still around and was probably cooking up a second biological strike wherever he was.

"Like I said earlier, nature always wins." said Ivy.

Batman had to agree with her on that this time. Man may be the dominant species of Earth, but when it came to natural disasters, grave injuries, disease and the like, he would always fall victim to it.

"Well, now that the cloud is no more, I guess you should go and find Crane. I'd help, but after what's happened to me, I need to rest. I don't see any point in going back to my original goal of cleansing the world of man anymore. I realize now that I can't save every plant any more than a single person can save every person, especially you despite your reputation among Gotham and other towns and cities. In other words: I quit." Ivy said.

Batman was glad inside to hear Ivy admit these words. He may have despised her version of saving the environment, but at the same time, he sympathized with her because of her love of nature which was usually ignored by a third of the world and what she said about both of them being unable to halt the harm and deaths of the things they work hard to protect. As harsh as it sounded, it was true.

In war, casualties were unavoidable.

Ivy turned to look at Batman, now with a look of sorrow on her green face. A tear ran down her face.

"It probably sounds impossible Batman, but I hope you can forgive me for all I have done. I'm starting to feel like such a fool for every horrible thing I did in the past. If I had died for real before tonight's invasion, people everywhere would only remember me for the evil I caused and I feel so terrible for killing all for my selfish desires." said Ivy, sounding ashamed for her actions.

"Eradicating Crane's gas is a start on the path to redemption and for the heroic sacrifice you made for Gotham and your retirement from crime, you've already earned my forgiveness and, in time, you can earn the city's too." he told her.

"Thanks, that means so much to me." she said and, feeling touched by his willingness to let bygones be bygones, Ivy did something she had never ever done before out of gratitude for Batman's kindness to her and remorse for her crimes:

She hugged him and cried a little bit into his chest!

The Dark Knight was stunned by this action. Other than Selina Kyle and Talia Al Ghul, Batman had never thought he would be hugged by one of Gotham's most notorious supercriminals.

Rather than shoving her off, Batman allowed it and wrapped one arm around her and patted her back to comfort her. It felt weird to do for him, but Poison Ivy was no longer the vicious plant hybrid she was before. She was a different person now as evidenced by her light sobbing.

After a while, she stopped crying and looked at him. Her eyes were red.

"I am so sorry for everything I did to everyone and to you." she said.

"It's alright, Ivy. You've made up for all of it. Thank you for saving Gotham." he said to her.

"My pleasure. The old me you knew before is now dead and buried for good. I've blossomed into a new person." she said.

They stayed like that for a minute before finally breaking apart.

Ivy wiped her eyes with her right hand.

"Come with me, Ivy. I'll take you back to the GCPD to rest and recover." he said.

"Since the city's hospitals are in ruins, that building is the only place I can be sheltered at for tonight, even if I am to be sharing the same space as a bunch of criminals and cops whom some probably hate me for controlling them before." Ivy replied.

"After what you did for everyone earlier, I'm certain you'll earn their forgiveness in time." said Batman, referring to the police rather than the criminals for reasons that do not need explaining. "Now grab on to me."

Batman carried Ivy to the edge of the rooftop and positioned himself in front of her. She wrapped her arms gently around his neck and shoulders and, using his grappling gun, Batman swung himself, with her attached, down to where the Batmobile was parked.

When they reached the ground, Batman opened the vehicle's backseat passenger chamber and carefully placed Ivy inside. Normally he would force a captured criminal or villain into the seat roughly, but for Ivy, he did it gently.

"Thank you for coming back for me, Batman." Ivy said while taking his hand into hers in comfort.

"You're welcome, Ivy." he said and the seat retracted with Ivy and the door shut itself.

With Ivy retrieved, Batman approached the driver's seat and hopped inside. He started the vehicle and drove away.

While driving, Batman spoke into the car's computer.

"This is Batman calling GCPD." he said.

An image of a man appeared on the screen. It was Aaron Cash.

"Cash here." he said.

"Cash, I've retrieved someone and I'm heading back to the GCPD." said Batman.

"You bringing in another whackjob already? That was fast." Cash asked.

"It's Ivy." he said.

"What? But she's dead! Scarecrow just announced it." he said.

"He's wrong. Turns out she survived the absorption process, but she's now badly weak from the gas and I'm bringing her back to recover from her injuries. She's reformed now and is no longer interested in her mission of plant supremacy, so she won't be a problem to anyone inside the building. I can't say the same for the criminals though." Batman said.

"Whatever you say, Batman. See you later." said Cash and the transmission ended and he returned his focus on the road.

When the Batmobile reached the police station's underground section, Batman hopped out and opened the passenger door.

Ivy appeared to be unconscious. Batman scanned her with his cowl and found a pulse. She was still alive and was just sleeping. She was exhausted and she deserved some rest.

Batman picked her up bridal style and walked into the station.

Four officers who were standing guard saw her and were shocked by the sight.

"Whoa! It's Ivy! Cash wasn't kidding when he said she was still alive!" said one of the officers.

"Is she alright? She looks terrible." said another guard.

"She's fine. She's just weak from the gas and is tired. I'm bringing her here to rest up." said Batman.

"Need help carrying her?" asked the first officer.

"No thanks. I got it." said Batman.

"I never thought I'd say this, but I feel kinda bad for her for sucking up all that fear crap for us all. I guess there was good in her, after all." said the first guard.

"Since Dr. Langstrum is being held in that first isolation chamber she was in earlier, there's another one in the back room you can put her in. We were saving it for that scary alligator guy in case he ever returns, but until then, feel free to use it." said the officer.

"It will do just fine." said Batman.

He walked to the door.

"Here, let me." said the second guard and he opened the door for Batman and he stepped inside.

As he walked in, several cops eyed him and Ivy and they were whispering about her. None of them spoke badly about her, they were rather admiring what she did for them at the cost of her health.

The detained criminals Batman had captured through the night, on the other hand, made wolf whistles and nasty comments about the plant woman.

"Hey 'Bat-Moron'! Are you and Poison Ivy hooking up now? Yeah, hubba-hubba!" said one inmate.

"And we thought 'Plant-Bitch' hated your guts, 'Bat-Chump'! another taunted.

"Poisonous DNA or not, I'd love to get it on with that sexy, green body of hers! I can make my own 'ranch dressing' to go with my salad if you know what I mean!" said another.

That last comment made Batman stop and he turned his head to glare at the man who made that horrid comment. Poison Ivy may have been a villainous person before, but even she didn't deserve such unwanted, rancid treatment like this.

"Uh-oh, I think you went too far, man." said a prisoner inside the same cell as the man.

"Pfft! What's he gonna do? Hang me from a cave or suck my blood like a friggin' vampire? Bleh, bleh, bleh! We're in here and he's over there where he can't touch us!" said the man who laughed it off and turned his back to Batman.

Another pair of officers approached the handle the situation.

"Hey, shut up in there, will ya?" one officer barked.

"Hold her for a moment." Batman told the officers.

"Uh, sure." they said and Batman handed Ivy over to them and they carefully held her by her arms and legs while Batman approached the cell housing the pervert inmate who wasn't paying attention at all as he was busy laughing while the other inmates backed away, afraid of what was about to happen.

When he got close enough, he grabbed him by his uniform's collar to turn him around and strongly slammed his face against the bars of his cell, leaving him screaming in pain and clutching his now-bleeding face with both hands. The result was a broken nose and jaw.

"Oooh, that's gotta hurt!" said one of the officers holding the unconscious Ivy.

"Anyone else have anything smart to say?" Batman asked to which the jailed criminals remained silent and shook their heads, not wanting to face the vigilante's wrath. While Batman may not be a killer, he still scared them with his brute strength.

"Good." Batman said and turned back to the cops to retrieve Ivy whom they immediately handed back over to and he resumed his trek.

When Batman entered the main area where most of Gotham's supercriminals were locked in the large cell in the middle of the room, the rest of the room's officers, former hostages and jailed villains saw how crappy Ivy looked after her ordeal.

The incarcerated criminals were Penguin, Two-Face, Firefly, a firefighter named Raymond Underhill who helped Firefly, Professor Pyg, and Simon Stagg. It would be filled up further later on.

Most of the staff and victims had heard of Ivy's peril and praised her for saving them while the incarcerated villains stared and rolled their eyes over Ivy's change and heroism, which they viewed as treachery and seeing her as a sell-out to their cause. If Ivy had joined them on their quest over domination of Gotham, her powers would have made Batman's mission to stop them nearly impossible and theirs quite easy.

"So Scarecrow was wrong about Dr. Isley being dead. I can already see Crane's reaction when he finds out about this." said Two-Face.

"You an' me both. Knowin' Batman, Scarecrow will be join' us real soon and we'll get ta see what he feels seein' Ivy livin'." said Penguin.

"I'd love to see the plant bitch burn! It will satisfy me very much!" said Firefly.

"You and your hobbies, Flynn." said Two-Face, rolling his eyes.

Says the guy who uses a stupid coin to make his choices for him." Firefly replied.

"Plant lady beautiful. She hurt by toxic gas, but Pyg can help make her beautiful and better than before." said Pyg in a creepy tone.

"Even you disgust me, you Ed Gein wannabe nutcase." said Simon Stagg to Pyg.

Batman ignored them.

Cash was nowhere to be seen. Batman figured he was on a bathroom break or something.

Soon, he was seen walking out and toward his desk.

"So it's true. Ivy's alive and . . . damn, is she in need of a doctor." he said upon seeing Batman carrying the unconscious Poison Ivy in his arms. "Was she like that when you found her?"

"Yes. She absorbed all of Crane's gas and it poisoned her nearly to death. Her appearance is the price she paid for the city." said Batman.

"Must have been painful as hell." said Cash.

"Where's the second chamber?" Batman asked.

"In the back. Follow me." he said.

Batman and Cash walked, with Ivy, to the door leading to the back.

When they arrived, Cash and Batman entered the room containing the second isolation chamber. Cash opened the door and Batman walked inside and gently placed Ivy inside on the chamber's bed.

Batman went to fetch a blanket and placed it over her body to make her more comfortable and warm.

Ivy remained sleeping and unmoving.

"Keep her safe while I resume my mission of stopping Scarecrow." said Batman.

"Will do." said Cash.

The two left and in a few seconds, a female officer came by to guard Ivy despite there not being anyone inside besides the botanist herself.

With not much left to do by herself, the female officer grabbed a chair, whipped out an e-book device and scanned for something to read to pass time until Ivy wakes up or something else happens.

* * *

 **Here's the first chapter of the reboot. Interesting? Ivy was showing hints of her newfound attraction to Batman here and this will evolve later on in the story. If you want to see Batman and Poison Ivy start a relationship with each other, then eat this tray of expired, rotting food . . . without puking. First one to puke loses and must do the macarena dance while barking like a little wiener dog.**

 ***hands over a tray of stinky food. Flies are buzzing around and maggots are crawling on the food.***

 **Bon apetit people!**

 ***sinister chuckle***


	2. Awakening

**Here's chapter 2.**

 **Happy Holidays/Merry Christmas from the time of this writing.**

 **To Jewish readers, Happy Hanukkah.**

 **To African readers, Happy Kwanzaa.**

 **To Hispanic/Latino people, Feliz Navidad.**

 **To atheist readers . . . have a nice day.**

 **A certain famous comedian said this in a Christmas comedy act I was watching. Anyone guess who I speak of?**

 **Any other holidays I missed/forgot that are celebrated in December, my bad.**

* * *

Ivy woke to the sound of a cell door closing. She blinked rapidly, but was unable to see anything because of disorientation clouding her eyes. She waited until her vision returned and when it did, she turned her head and she saw a few officers standing in the room along with Batman.

But they were not focused on her, they were looking at something else. Presumably another prisoner Batman captured recently, but she was unable to see who it was.

Ivy couldn't fully hear the verbal exchange the guards and Batman were giving due to her disorientation.

While this happened, Ivy looked around and realized she was laying on a bed in an isolation chamber that mirrored the previous one she was placed in earlier. She knew instantly that Batman must have placed her here while she was unconscious.

She noticed the blanket draped over her and also guessed that was from him, too.

She removed the blanket with one hand and saw no restraints on her. Usually, whenever she was brought in by Batman or some other authority figure, she was restrained by cuffs or something else. But not this time. Ivy figured Batman wouldn't resort to doing that to her tonight and she was grateful for that.

A few other things she discovered were that there was a life-support machine in the chamber with her and she had needles in her hands which were attached to wires that were, in turn, attached to an IV bag that was filled with a clear-looking fluid and it was currently being administered through her hands and throughout her system. She also wore a respirator mask over her face to help her breath properly.

Her skin still retained the same, ugly appearance from the cloudburst toxin. She hoped it was not permanent. She might have been immune to Scarecrow's toxin, but even she had limitations on how much of a chemical she can absorb as it was proven earlier out there. She was lucky to still be alive.

There was also a bucket nearby her bed. She was unsure of its purpose.

Aside from moving her head, she was unable to move much from her fever-like condition.

She noticed that Batman was about to depart until he Ivy was awake and staring out the chamber window.

"Ivy." he said and approached her, wanting to check on her.

"Batman?" Ivy said, feeling dizzy.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

"I still feel horrible and still weak to move much. What's going on? Where am I?" Ivy said and asked.

"You're inside the GCPD. I put you in that chamber to keep you safe and away from the other detainees." he said.

Ivy weakly raised a hand and pointed to the machine, wanting to know about it.

"That pouch is injecting you with water to hydrate you as you appeared to be dehydrated. I had it brought in when I left earlier along with that blanket covering you."

Ivy was touched that he was helping her in her dire time of need. She never knew there was a caring side of him.

"There was a second chamber in this building the whole time?" Ivy asked.

"Yes. The other chamber you were in before is already occupied by Dr. Kirk Langstrum. He suffered from a mutation that made him go on a rampage across Gotham and I brought him here earlier during our mission to raise your plants from the ground." he explained.

"Who's this chamber really meant for?" Ivy asked.

"Killer Croc. In case he shows up tonight, the police will be prepared to hold him inside it and you'll be moved elsewhere when the time comes." he said.

"Did you find Scarecrow?" she asked.

"No, but I just returned to lock away Jervis Tetch. He surrendered to the GCPD as part of a trap he set for me and a few hostages he took. But he failed again." Batman said.

Ivy gritted her teeth at the mention of Mad Hatter, remembering what he did to her once. Even she, a mind control master herself, was embarrassed at being enslaved to his whim once and it ate away at her since.

"I hate that man for what he did to me." Ivy said with irritation in her voice.

"You're talking about the night he made you into another of his fantasy slaves?" Batman asked even though he already knew the answer and mentally flashed back to the time Ivy was referring to when he saved her and three others from Hatter's hypnosis tricks.

"Yes. How can I forget that? I felt so stupid and embarrassed at falling prey to him and, even though I never expressed it, it hasn't stopped disturbing me since." Ivy said.

"Well, he shouldn't try it on anyone again." said Batman.

Ivy mentally rolled her eyes at that statement. She had a feeling that Tetch would someday, somehow, be freed from imprisonment again and repeat his antics.

"Did he attend Scarecrow's meeting, too?" Batman asked.

"No, I never saw him there. Good thing too, otherwise I would have throttled him the instant I saw him." Ivy said.

"Is that the 'Queen of Hearts' you're talking to, Batman? Or is that my 'Alice'?" Hatter asked from his cell.

Ivy groaned from hearing his voice.

"She's still alive after absorbing all that harmful gas? Hi-diddly-dee, what a feat. She's quite the strong lass." said the insane man.

"Shut up, Jervis." Batman warned.

"What? You deny me my right to have a few words with the 'Red Queen'? There's no crime in tal-"

Before he could finish, Batman, while looking at Ivy, whipped out his REC gun and, without looking at Hatter, fired a small jolt of electricity at him.

Hatter sputtered, babbled and sizzled from the electrical discharge surging throughout his body until he fell backwards unconscious.

Feeling that Batman had this under control, the guards left them alone.

 _Thank god . . ._ Ivy thought.

"Why is that there?" she asked about the bucket.

"For you to regurgitate in if you feel sick." he replied.

Although fearful of vomiting, Ivy was glad to have a bucket prepared if it happened.

"I'll be back." Batman said and he left the room and later returned with a full water bottle.

He opened the chamber door and helped Ivy sit up and arched her back against the chamber's wall.

"Here." he said, offering it to her while standing in front of her.

"Can you pour it over me? I can absorb water better through my skin than by drinking it." she asked.

Batman complied and opened the bottle and poured its contents all over Ivy's head which dripped down all over her body.

Ivy felt relieved when the water touched her cracked skin and the liquid absorbed into her skin like a sponge.

Soon, the water bottle was empty and Ivy was refreshed for the moment.

"How is that?" he asked her.

"Better, thank you." she said and leaned her back against the bedside wall to remain sitting while Batman exited and closed the chamber door, but he still remained in the room.

Ivy noticed that Batman was acting kind to her instead of hostile as usual, something he never did with her before. He's been that way since he found her alive. Did he feel any sympathy for the woman he used to battle before? Ivy, in return, was starting to grow some respect for him as well.

"That reminds me, how are Robin and Nightwing?" Ivy asked, wanting to know what's become of them since she attacked them before.

"They're helping me out with the invasion." Batman said.

"Is Nightwing alright from what happened back in Bludhaven?" asked Ivy, remembering her confrontation with him when Harley Quinn bust her out of her holding cell at the Bludhaven police station.

"He's fine. He told me what went on back there. I told him what happened with you and of your current status earlier. He thought I arrested you, but I told him you were reformed and are now fighting with us against the perpetrators of this invasion." said Batman.

Ivy flashed back to handling Nightwing with her plants and now she was hoping she didn't injure him too badly. she just wanted to escape her holding cell, not hurt or kill him.

She then had a flashback of Robin and what he did to him, controlling him into fighting Batman prior to the events of Arkham City.

Now she was starting to regret what she did to both of them.

"When you see them again, tell them that I deeply apologize for everything I did to them." Ivy replied, frowning from feeling bad about her deeds.

"I will, but what they decide on you is up to them." said Batman.

"At least my plants didn't kill them. That's another good thing I did besides saving Gotham. The other was saving you from Bane." said Ivy.

Batman remembered his fight against Bane sometime before tonight's events.

Ivy then remembered something important she wanted to say to him.

"Batman." she said and he focused.

"Yes, Ivy?" he asked.

"There's something else I need to tell you. It's about the Arkham Knight." she said.

"What about him?" he asked.

"Remember what I said about the meeting that started all of this?"

"Yes."

"He was there, too." she said.

"The Arkham Knight was there, too?" he asked her.

"Yes. I've heard of him before this all started and then at that exact meeting, I saw him in person. I thought he was just another lunatic wanting to fight you for public attention. He wanted something, alright. He said he plotted to have you killed tonight. He hates you so much, but he never stated why to anyone, not even Crane." Ivy said.

"I've made a lot of enemies over the years I've spent defending Gotham, but the Knight's view of me makes no sense and I've been asking myself a few questions about him during the night." he said.

"Like . . .?" Ivy asked, wanting to know what kind of questions.

"How does he even know me and how I fight? What did I ever do to earn his hatred of me when I've never even met him before until tonight? Someone like him doesn't just appear out of nowhere with an army and so much intel on me to start a war without ever combating me." Batman said.

"I've been asking myself the same thing during my stay in that other chamber before you recruited me to help you. While you were gone, I too did some thinking and also grew puzzled of what reasons he could have to invade Gotham like it's World War III. You're right, something doesn't quite add up about him. Since you're going to have to face him sometime, I figure you're owed a further explanation of what went on at that other than what I told you when you freed me. I'm not sure if it'll help fully, but it's the least I can do to help in stopping him and Crane." Ivy replied.

"What happened?" he asked.

"I think you'd better grab a chair because this is going to be quite a long story." Ivy said.

Since Batman had no word on the whereabouts of his enemies for now and having Robin and Nightwing keeping watch over Gotham, he grabbed a steel chair and sat in it in front of Ivy's chamber.

With a deep breath, Ivy began telling her story of what she remembered from the meeting of the city's supercriminals.

* * *

 **IVY'S FLASHBACK . . .**

* * *

After Harley Quinn had defeated the Bludhaven police and Nightwing, she freed Poison Ivy from her cell and took this moment to speak with someone on her earpiece link.

"Harley, who are you speaking to?" Ivy asked her when the jester woman finished.

"Oh, that was Pengy." Yeah, I'm workin' with him. Shocker, ain't it? After what Mr. J did to him once or twice, Penguin hated our guts for a while, But after a pep talk, he sent me here ta bust your green butt outta here and back ta Gotham. Well, most of it was Scarecrow's idea. He ordered Penguin ta break you out and thus, here I am." said Harley.

Harley refused to tell Ivy of her former relationship with Penguin

"Not that I'm ungrateful for this and all, but why do Penguin and Scarecrow want me?" Ivy asked.

"Well Red, accordin' ta Pengy, Scarecrow's gatherin' all of us supercriminals together as part of some new plot to get revenge against B-man. I couldn't resist the offer since I too wanna make the big, ugly Bat pay fer killin' my Puddin'. So I signed up immediately and my first mission was breakin' in this craphole so you too can get dibs on what I like ta call 'Operation: Kill the Batman'! I'm not sure what 'Angry Bird' or 'Mr. Crowley' call the plan and I don't really care. What I do care about is killing' Bat-brain." Harley explained.

Ivy didn't like Penguin or Crane very much, but she didn't like being in the BPD building even more.

"I may not be friends with any of those people Harley, but because I love you like a little sister, I'll play along. Also, Nightwing will be back anytime and I don't want to waste this time fighting him again or any cops whatsoever." Ivy replied.

"Yay! I love ya too, Red!" Harley exclaimed happily and hugged the plant woman for three seconds and released her. "Let's get outta this dump."

Harley led Ivy all the way back to the van she used to get here and Ivy was able to see and admire the carnage her clown friend caused to save her.

When they made it to the van, Ivy saw the van's condition and, with a mental smirk, realized that when Harley said she broke into the BPD station, she meant it literally.

Once inside the vehicle, Harley started the van, backed it up out into the station's parking lot, revved the engine and floored it into the night.

During the ride, Harley asked Ivy to open the glove box. She did and found a gun, a small pipe bomb and an MP3 player.

"Which one do you want?" Ivy asked.

"The music thingy. It has songs I like and I feel like rockin' out to something tonight to get the mood goin'." Harley said.

Ivy gave the MP3 player to Harley and she plugged it to the van's stereo system, set it to random, cranked up the volume and music began to blare from the speakers and Harley sang along to the lyrics of the first song that played.

Ivy remained quiet during the drive and thought to herself, letting Harley be her goofy self.

Ivy hated riding in vehicles like these because, like every other heavily-committed environmentalist (though she believed she was really, truly committed as per her belief of herself being mother nature in humanoid form), vehicles and machinery that produced smog were one of the two main causes of pollution to the planet, the other cause was humanity because they built the polluting technology. Both were, to her, a dangerous pair. But riding in this van beat walking at the moment because every authority figure in Bludhaven, Gotham, Metropolis and other places with close ties to Batman and his fellow heroes will be after her once word of her escape got out. Plus, from her eyes, it was better to ride with Harley Quinn, someone she cared for and trusted and vice-versa for the clown girl, than anyone else. If someone like Joker or Two-Face offered her a ride, she would have refused instantly and would rather escape Bludhaven herself.

After making it back to Gotham territory, Harley made a turn or two and Ivy then realized where they were going.

"The gathering is held at Arkham Asylum?" Ivy asked.

"Yep, sorry I didn't tell you before, Red. Since Arkham's now a ghost town, Penguin said that 'Scary Potter' said that it was the perfect place to hold the first unofficial 'Villain Con'. This place sure does bring back memories, huh?" Harley replied.

"Oh yes, it sure does." Ivy said rather sarcastically.

Her memories of her time in the asylum flooded her mind. She remembered everything, especially the riots from two years ago. That was one night she could never forget.

Harley plowed the van right through the asylum gates, uncaring if they were open or locked, and stopped in front of the asylum entrance.

"Come on, Ivy. Let's get to where the meeting's happening." said Harley.

The two exited the van and Harley merrily skipped her way toward the abandoned facility while Ivy followed behind.

 _This had better be good. I could be spending my freedom tending to my plant babied instead of coming back to this godawful place with a bunch of psychotic meatsacks._ Ivy thought.

They eventually made it to the Arkham Mansion part of the facility where Ivy saw some of her dead plants inside. She remembered using them to take over the mansion and all of Arkham Island when she was strengthened by the TITAN drug from Joker.

Upon entering the mansion, the two women found more of Batman's enemies waiting inside.

The attendees, other than themselves, were Riddler, Two-Face, and Penguin. It didn't seem like much. Where were the other villains? Perhaps they were still locked away and could not be sprung. Or maybe Scarecrow had no interest in recruiting them.

"Here we come to wreck the daaaaaaay!" Harley said in song form.

"It's about time you showed your nutty face, Quinn." said Penguin.

"Oh good, the botanist is here. Now we're safe." Two-Face said sarcastically.

"Dr. Isley, how good of you to join us on this fine evening." Riddler said.

"So this is the meeting that wishes Batman's demise?" Ivy asked.

"Yup." said Harley.

"So where's Scarecrow? Harley told me he orchestrated this whole thing." Ivy wondered.

"I am right here, Dr. Isley." said a creepy voice.

Everyone turned around and saw Jonathan "Scarecrow" Crane standing behind all of them.

Harley let out a high-pitched girly scream the instant she heard his voice.

"Holy cheesecake, Scarecrow! Don't do that! You nearly gave me a friggin' heart attack!" Harley said, clutching her chest with one hand. "How long have you been standing there?"

"Long enough, Dr. Quinzel. You have all been called here because of the common goal we each share: the strong dislike of Batman. He is a problem that needs to be eliminated and I can help make that happen." said Scarecrow.

He then presented a laptop on a table, opened it and turned it on.

After typing in some commands, the laptop screen soon showed footage of Batman battling Bane.

While watching, the villains, except Harley Quinn, noticed something was off with Bane. Something different. Sure, he was a strong brawler, but the way he was fighting Batman looked rather different.

"What you are all seeing is no recording. It is live footage." said Scarecrow.

"This Batman thing is happening live?" one of the villains asked.

"It is." said a distorted, computer-like voice that came from a shadowy spot behind Scarecrow. "Despite Bane's efforts at the moment, Batman is still very alive. But follow my plans and he won't be for much longer."

The other villains except for Scarecrow were wondering who that was. None of them were briefed of anyone else attending the meeting, especially when it was a voice of someone they've never seen or heard of before.

However, Harley Quinn seemed to recognize the voice because she had heard it once before, but could not place the name.

It was there that she realized who it was that was inside the building with them and panicked inside.

 _Holy hell! It's him!_ She thought.

Scarecrow smiled evilly.

"If any of you thought I was here alone before you came, you are wrong. I brought with me someone who also wishes for Batman's extermination just as much as any of us and he is also my co-conspirator of getting rid of him." he said and turned around and waved his hand at the unseen figure behind him.

In a second, a tall unidentified man stepped out and revealed himself to the others. His appearance resembled a militarized, robotic version of Batman complete with a computerized blue-faced helmet that completely concealed his face and several weapons and gadgets attached to his suit.

Something told the villains that this person was nothing like his heroic counterpart.

Harley remembered him instantly. She had met this man before and it made her nervous considering her history with him.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is the Arkham Knight, and he is going to help us scare the Batman to death!" said Scarecrow.

"There is no need to introduce yourselves to me. I already know all about every one of you people. As Scarecrow here said, I'm here to make your dreams of ending Batman into reality." said the figure now know to them as the Arkham Knight.

Harley leaned closer to Poison Ivy and whispered, "Believe me Red, I had no idea Scarecrow hired this guy. But I hafta admit, his voice kinda reminds me of the robot maid from that 1960's space cartoon I used ta watch as a kid."

Ivy just stared at the Batman-wannabe standing next to Crane.

"'Arkham Knight'? First this mental institution, then the city fortress from last year and now this man? Who or what else is named after the guy who built, and then later became a patient of, this rotting place? What grudge could you, a mysterious imitator of the infamous vigilante of Gotham, possibly have against him like we do? We've never even seen you around these parts before." Riddler questioned.

The Arkham Knight looked at him.

"My reason for wanting Batman gone is just as reasonable as each of yours. I have studied him for a long time. You know very little about him personally while I, on the other hand, know a hell of a lot about him such as how he thinks, how he fights, what gadgets and strategies he uses and the people he works with, both past and present. All of this knowledge can come to our great advantage over besting him." he said.

"If that's true, then do you know who Batman is underneath that ridiculous mask he wears all the time? None of us have ever even gotten close to seein' his real face." Penguin said.

"I almost did once!" Harley said aloud, raising her hand and causing everyone to look at her.

"You? No bloomin' way!" Penguin said in disbelief.

"Yes 'bloomin' way', Pengy!" Harley said while imitating his cockney accent much to his slight annoyance.

Harley told them about what she and Joker did to Batman back at Arkham City in the steel mill area.

"I was this friggin' close" she pinched her right hand index and thumb fingers nearly shut as part of her speech. "ta seein' who he was until Mr. J stopped me and told me not to. He said no one was who you think they are and ta him, it was more fun messin' with Bat-brain without seein' his face and it would spoil the mystery if he saw B-man's real face and so I played along."

"Well, your so-called 'Puddin'' isn't around anymore, sweetheart. You should have unmasked that troublesome Bat when you trapped him in that giant hamster ball of yours two weeks after your boy toy died. Word about what happened that night reached all of Gotham and when it did, many of this town's criminals, us included, were impressed, nervous, and jealous that a whackjob doctor like you actually captured and imprisoned Batman without Joker's help. Even I thought it was a joke until your goons said otherwise after they all got arrested when Batman and his helper beat you again." said Two-Face.

"Well, I guess that makes me the first woman to succeed in trappin' the Bat and almost gettin' away with it twice. Although you're kinda right about the unmaskin' part. I coulda done it before trappin' him, but I remembered my Puddin' words about keepin' Batman's face hidden and was too focused on revenge to think of doin' that. Even in death, I still can't disobey my late sweetheart. He'd probably yell at me for trapping and almost killin' B-man 'cause he once said before that only he had the right to off him." Harley said.

Before anyone else could say anything else, Scarecrow cleared his throat loud enough to snag everyone's attention back to the topic at hand and when they were quiet and focused on him.

"Crane, I think you're missin' a few bales up in the brain area. How the hell is your pal here plannin' to kill Batman?" Penguin asked.

"Penguin's right. It's easier said that done and Batman is a one-man army. How do we even know we can trust him?" Two-Face said and pointed an accusing finger at the Knight. "Hell, the guy is suited up like he works with him!"

"I have seen the Knight's plans, Two-Face. They are sound. They are complete and most of all, . . . they are _devastating_." Scarecrow said eerily in defense of the Arkham Knight. "Just the way I like it."

That tone made Harley clutch onto Ivy for protection, which she didn't mind at all.

Scarecrow pointed at the computer screen showing the fight between Batman and Bane.

"As you have seen, my new toxin is stronger than ever and what you are all seeing on the computer right now is the result. Combined with the Knight's weaponry, we have a chance at victory. But with all of you working to weaken him at the same time, we will make that darkest night his last night on Earth. We are owed revenge. It will be ours, as will this city. The Bat is simply blood, bone and flesh. He is nothing but a man in a suit and not some supernatural force many people believe him to be."

He was hoping that this speech would revitalize the villains to his and the Knight's cause.

It didn't.

"Screw this, Crane! You didn't live through the Arkham City debacle last year! We listened to outsiders before and it gets us nowhere every damn time!" Penguin protested.

"The bird's right. So you got a new pal and a new recipe for your crappy toxin. Doesn't explain why I should trust my business with one guy who creeps me out half the time and another I've never heard of before.

"I guess what 'Double Trouble' is sayin' 'Strawman' is that Arkham's 'A-Team is gonna take a pass." Harley added, not afraid of the Arkham Knight anymore.

All the villains then aimed their weapons at Scarecrow and the Knight as their way of saying they were uninterested in their plot.

They were ready to tear them apart.

But neither man flinched or looked afraid of them and remained calm.

There was a reason why.

As the standoff resumed,, they were suddenly interrupted by the whirring sound, and appearance of, a large aircraft hovering close to the building.

Its pilot was Deathstroke.

Before anyone could react, the hovering craft suddenly fired a missile into the compound, causing a powerful explosion that rocked its occupants except Scarecrow and the Knight. Nobody was killed.

This was obviously staged by those two in the event the villains rejected their plot.

While the downed villains were busy recuperating from the surprise attack, the Knight approached them.

"That was just a small sample of the firepower I have hiding throughout the city. But let me put it to you in another way so we're crystal clear: I'm not _asking_ you." he said calmly, but threateningly.

The villains were surprised and somewhat fearful of this mysterious man and his extreme antics. Even Scarecrow was amazed by it. This person was the complete opposite of Batman, the perfect enemy for him.

"That was unnecessary!" Penguin yelled after recovering from the attack.

 _Same here._ Ivy thought while Harley tended to her.

"You're a businessman, Penguin. So you know a buyer's market when you see it. I'd like to say that you need me far more than I need you. But that wouldn't be completely true. I do need you. You've all fought the bastard up close and I want him to know that you each played a part in his fall at the end of all this." said the Knight as he turned his back to the villains.

"And how do we know you're not gonna blow it right when things get tight? The Bat ain't exactly got a reputation for losing." said Two-Face.

Scarecrow knew what was happening and approached the Knight.

"They want proof that you're strong enough Knight and I believe you should show them how." he said.

The Knight glanced at Scarecrow and said, "Then I shall show them."

He stepped out of a door and left the building, leaping from building to building with a grappling hook that looked similar to Batman's.

"What's he gonna do?" Harley asked.

"Either somethin' brave or somethin' incredibly stupid." said Penguin.

"You asked for proof of the Arkham Knight's power. You'll have it within twenty minutes." said Scarecrow as he entered an elevator.

"Yeah well, what do you expect us to do after that, Scarecrow?" Two-Face asked.

"I expect you all to make a decision that will change your lives." Scarecrow replied and the elevator doors and took him away from the villains.

For the last few minutes, Riddler, Penguin and Two-Face were distracted by the damage Deathstroke cause earlier while waiting for any results from the departed Arkham Knight while Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy had a moment to themselves.

"I've heard about this Knight guy for months. I knew someone was working in the shadows and now all of a sudden, he wants to help us? Makes no sense to me." Ivy said.

"Makes as much sense as working with these clowns, Ivy. At least this guy knows how to make a big impression on someone as creepy as Scarecrow." said Harley.

"That's the thing, Harley. The last thing I'm concerned about is what impresses these men. I have no interest in their fruitless race to outshine Batman. I've just outgrown him." Ivy admitted.

Before Harley could respond to that, she glanced over at something behind her plant friend and had wide eyes from what she was seeing.

"Well, it doesn't look as if everyone's as evolved as you, Pammie Whammy!" she said.

Ivy turned around and was startled at what Harley was looking at.

The Arkham Knight had returned . . . with someone else in his hand. It was a large, muscular man who appeared to be bleeding, injured with bullet wounds and severely immolated.

The man the Knight was holding was Bane, the same person they saw fighting Batman earlier on the laptop.

This outlandish sight bewildered the villains.

"You fools doubted my ability. Don't do it again." said the Knight and tossed Bane's body to the floor for the rest to observe at what he had accomplished. He wanted them to know that he meant serious business and of what he was capable of doing to anyone who opposed him.

"Batman dies on Halloween night. You can either be a part of his death or simply watch from the sidelines and wish you were there. I won't be asking you again." he said and swung away again, leaving the villains to themselves once more.

After he was gone, Harley turned to Ivy.

"So Red, whaddya think of this Knight guy's plan? Pretty neat, huh? Still thinkin' about backin' out?" she asked her.

"I find it odd that you would ask me those questions Harley, considering the fact that you were about to back out a few minutes ago when you joined the other meatsacks and myself in threatening Crane and his new friend." Ivy said.

"That was before 'Evil Bats' did a number on 'Loco Libre' and brought him in for Show An' Tell." Harley replied. "Besides, between us, I don't want the others to hurt ya for backing out, Red. You're the only friend I have left after my beloved went to 'Clown Heaven'."

Before Ivy could respond, the elevator doors opened and out stepped Scarecrow.

"So what are your thoughts on the Knight's outstanding performance?" he asked.

Did they plan this? Ivy thought.

"I admit that it was messy, but his willingness to kill most definitely means he ain't allied with the bothersome Bat because he and his friends never kill people. But this guy does, just like we do." Penguin said.

"He is just as brutal and menacing than we all thought. Bane was the strongest person on Earth aside from that freak from Metropolis and look what the Knight did to him by himself. Batman defeated Bane countless times, but the Knight was something else." said Two-Face.

"It seems that this Arkham Knight fellow really is hellbent on exterminating the Dark Knight just as much as we are. I mean, who could ever stand up to someone like Bane, the self-proclaimed, 'World's Strongest Man', and kill him successfully? Sure, Batman has gone toe to toe with him several times before, but unlike Batman, the Knight didn't restrain his urge to kill against Bane. It's as if poor Bane was mere target practice for the Arkham Knight." said Riddler.

"That part about Bats never killin' is total bull! He killed my Puddin'! I know it! All that crap they say on the news about Joker dyin' from a disease or by suicide is a bunch of hoopla! Besides, Bane here sure ain't gettin' up for round 2, that's for sure. Bat-Chump ain't got no chance against that new Knight guy." said Harley.

"So fierce." Ivy said sarcastically.

"Have any of you come to a decision?" Scarecrow asked.

"Very well. I'm in. I've been waiting a whole year to repay the Dark Knight for humiliating me back at Arkham City and this could finally be it. I could even probably succeed at it much better than Joker ever did. He never killed Batman when he got the chance to because he was a big dope." said Riddler.

"Hey!" Harley replied in offense to Nygma's comment.

"You know I'm right, Quinn." Riddler replied to her.

Harley glared at him, but was unable to think of a comeback to offend the man in green and she simply flipped him the bird and he just scoffed at her last resort of offense.

"If it will make that Batman-wannabe happy, I'm in too. I could use this opportunity to build up my wealth and retire a happy man with the knowledge that the Dark Knight is dead." said Two-Face.

"Add me in. Without Batman breathin' down my neck, and breakin' it too, I can finally succeed in my business and make tons o' money!" said Penguin.

"I suppose your and AK's 'Anti-Batman Club' is for me, 'Dr. Scary'. This way, I can see the 'Dork Knight' die and finally avenge my late Puddin'!" Harley said and swung her bat weapon at nothing as if she were hitting someone or something.

"Booyah!" she exclaimed excitedly.

There was only one person who has yet to give an answer. All eyes focused on Poison Ivy.

"What about you, Dr. Isley? What is your answer to this grand offer of exterminating Batman?" Scarecrow asked her.

Harley had a feeling the others wouldn't take too kindly to her upcoming answer.

Ivy sensed it too, but she showed no fear and spoke.

"I admit that the plan is good, cunning, splendid and downright destructive, Crane. The Arkham Knight is one fearsome individual, even more terrifying than you. The perfect one to put an end to the man responsible for our failures and misery every year and make Gotham bow to us like royalty or gods even." she said.

"And . . .?" Scarecrow asked, assuming Ivy would accept the plan and join in with everyone else.

Harley held her breath like a frog to prepare for the worst to come.

"Not interested." said Ivy.

Her answer came as a stunning surprise to the villains except Harley who exhaled mightily. They were shocked that Pamela Lilian Isley, Gotham's most infamous botanist/eco-terrorist/enemy of Batman, the Bat Clan, Gotham and all of humankind, was refusing to participate in the plot to kill the superhero that always bested them and her.

"So you were serious about rejectin' this after all, eh Red?" Harley questioned.

"Wait, you knew she would refuse to join in? When did ya know this, ya crazy harlot?" Penguin demanded with everyone agreeing.

"It was a girl to girl thing we had while all of you were gawkin' at 'Robo-Bats's escape act when he left to pound the holy hell outta Bane." said Harley.

"Did Dr. Isley say why she refuses to go with it?" Riddler asked.

"She said she outgrew Bats and wanted nothin' to do with fightin' him anymore. I figured she would change her mind after seein' what the Arkham Knight showed us what he did to 'Has-Bane'." said Harley.

"Is that the only reason you are disinterested in joining our crusade, Ivy?" Scarecrow asked.

"I do despise Batman, Crane. I really do, but there's just some things about the Knight's plan that do not interest me." Ivy said.

"Such as . . .?" Scarecrow asked.

The others glared at Ivy, waiting for an answer.

"I don't do well with other humans. I'm a one-woman army. We always face defeat at Batman's hands no matter what we do or how we plan it and, most of all, none of you care for nature like me and all I want for tonight and every other night is to just settle down alone with my precious plant babies without interference from humanity, so all of you people can count me out of this one. If you want to go through with your little plan that's bound to fail like always, then by all means, go ahead without me. Just don't get in my way." Ivy explained.

For a moment, nobody said anything. Harley was staring at Ivy with her mouth agape.

"Now if you'll excuse me, I have to find and tend to my plant children. They need me." Ivy said.

The villains looked disappointed at Poison Ivy's decision, but not Scarecrow. He seemed cool with it for some reason.

"By all means Dr. Isley, Feel free to leave this alliance." he said to her, much to the confusion of the others. They expected to see him yell and/or threaten Ivy. But he wasn't.

Ivy turned around and started to walk away, leaving everyone silent.

Suddenly, a flying object slammed against the back of Ivy's head and she fell to the ground. It was an empty flower pot. The irony.

"What the frick!?" Harley exclaimed from seeing her friend assaulted and all eyes darted to the cause which happened to be Scarecrow who threw the pot at her.

Harley rushed over to the fallen botanist and held her in her arms.

"Pammie? Pammie, wake up!" said Harley.

Ivy did not respond.

Harley glared angrily at Scarecrow.

"You killed my best friend, you bastard! First my Puddin', now Ivy! Why do bad things happen to my loved ones!?" she said furiously.

"I didn't kill her, Harley. I simply rendered her unconscious. Since she refused to participate in our nefarious plot, she is now our enemy and will be treated as such like with Batman and his allies. You should be thankful that the Arkham Knight is not here when she made her choice otherwise he would have killed her on sight." Scarecrow told her.

Harley calmed down and said, "Oh."

Scarecrow approached Ivy and studied her form. Then he got an idea.

"I believe Dr. Isley could prove to be useful as another guinea pig for my new toxin." he said in a sinister tone.

"What? You wanna test your fear crap on Red?" Harley questioned in disbelief.

"Yes." he answered blankly.

"But isn't she, oh gee I don't know, uh, oh yeah, _immune_ to poisons and chemicals that are usually harmful to normal people? Your toxin stuff won't work on her, Crane." Two-Face asked sarcastically.

"I'm fully aware of Ivy's immunity to biological substances, Mr. Dent. My experimentation on her is to be a mere distraction for Batman later during the invasion. We all know that he never leaves anyone to die, not even us when we're in grave peril, and he'll attempt to save Ivy from her imprisonment sometime while I work on the toxin formula elsewhere while he is distracted." said Scarecrow.

He remembered the slight incident between him and Killer Croc two years ago in sewer levels of this very facility, but he shrugged it off. Even if Croc was present in Gotham now, he had no intention of inviting him over here anyway after what he almost did to him then.

"So you're going to test your mind-altering chemical on her right here, right now?" Riddler asked, twirling his question mark cane.

"No, not here. I have a hideout with a testing chamber built inside in Gotham. I will take her there and lock her up before the attack." Scarecrow said and bent over and picked Ivy up and heaved her over his shoulder.

"I'll need one of you to drive me to my safehouse while the rest of you prepare yourselves. As the Arkham Knight put it, Batman dies soon and we need to be ready." Scarecrow said and started walking out of the asylum with an unconscious Ivy draped over him.

"Red . . ." Harley muttered as she watched Scarecrow carry Poison Ivy away, unable to help her.

Although she disagreed with Ivy's choice to exclude herself from the plot, Harley still cared for her regardless. Harley was Ivy's only human friend despite her open hatred of mankind and Harley was touched by Ivy's willingness to allow her into her life.

There was also Catwoman, but Harley preferred Ivy's company more.

Of course, there was that one time where, after ambushing and capturing Batman, Ivy and Harley had a disagreement which then turned into a battle. Unable to handle Ivy alone, Harley joined forces with Catwoman and Batman to stop her. But eventually, Harley and Ivy reconciled and were on good terms once again.

After Joker perished, as Harley stated, Ivy was the only one she had left to turn to in a world that cared very less about them. If Ivy died too, Harley would truly be alone and she'd spend forever in a prison cell or out on the streets. No Joker and no Ivy meant there was no point in living for her.

Snapping back to attention, Harley shook her thoughts off.

"I'll . . . take ya there, Crane." she offered.

As much as she hated seeing Scarecrow kidnap Ivy for testing/bait usage, the only reason for volunteering to drive him to his hideout was so she could keep an eye on Ivy and make sure Scarecrow didn't really hurt her.

"Very well, Dr. Quinzel." Scarecrow said and Harley led him away and outside back to her van. She opened the back door and Scarecrow placed Ivy inside.

While Crane was busy on his cell phone chatting with someone (probably the Arkham Knight or one of his soldiers) and not looking, Harley bent over to Ivy.

"I hope you're really immune to his toxin stuff, Pammie. Please forgive me fer what's about to happen." Harley whispered to Ivy and patted her hand and closed the door.

When Scarecrow hung up and approached the passenger seat, Harley hopped inside the van's driver seat, started the van and drove away with Crane and Ivy inside.

Sometime later, Ivy stirred awake and, after her vision returned to normal, she discovered, to her annoyance, that she was inside a glass chamber and strapped down to a chair with restraints wrapped around her hands.

 _Where . . . where am I?_ She asked herself.

Ivy saw a few men standing outside the chamber's barrier. They were dressed as militia. She wondered if they worked for the Arkham Knight since they kinda resembled him.

One of them turned around and saw her.

"Guys, she's awake." he said and the other guards turned their attention to the plant woman trapped inside.

"What's going on here?" Ivy asked them while trying, in vain, to escape her chair.

"Scarecrow knocked you out and stuffed you in that chamber after you refused to join him and his new friend.

"Why would Crane place me in here? Why not kill me when I rejected his offer?" Ivy asked.

"Because, you walking salad freak, Scarecrow wishes to test out his new toxin drug on you. Such a shame, though. You could have been the most powerful member of this team. But you had to think of your stupid plants first, you friggin' weed." said one guard.

"Yeah, they're just freakin' plants for god's sake's and you act like they have feelings when they clearly don't! You're just like those stupid hippie morons from the 1960's: obsessed with the stupid environment and saving stupid plants and animals, mostly plants for you." said another guard.

These comments made Ivy glare at them with anger in her green eyes.

"When I get out of here, all of you will regret this moment dearly." she threatened.

"Yeah right. I'm so scared, I'm shaking like a leaf." the guard said and mimicked shaking to add further insult to Ivy's predicament.

"Me too! I wish I had leaves right now so I can wipe my ass with them like how people used to in the days before toilet paper was invented." said another guard and picked up a piece of paper and rubbed it across his behind, imitating what he said and knowing that paper was made from trees which stood against Ivy's beliefs.

This made the guard chuckle while Ivy grew furious inside, but she kept it to herself for the moment. She chose to wait until the timing was right to extract her revenge against them. Like they say, all good things come to those who wait.

"Hey guys, I think she's getting agitated. Did we hurt your feelings, Ivy?" a guard asked sarcastically.

Ivy glared daggers at him, not saying a word.

"You gonna cry? If you do, we'll make like a tree and get out of here." the guard mocked.

The other guard closest to him, out of annoyance, slapped the back of his head with one hand and said, "It's 'leave' you idiot! 'Make like a tree and LEAVE'! You sound like a damn fool when you say it wrong!"

The offended guard rubbed his head to dull the pain.

"Whatever. She's in there and we're out here. What can she do to us from inside?" he said.

"She could summon those freaky plants of hers and choke the crap outta us." said one guard.

"Pfft! Do you see any plants here besides her?"

"Good point."

While the guards were talking to each other and ignoring Ivy, she counted on Batman finding her here. He would never leave anyone to die, not even his enemies and this included her. As annoying as he might be to her, she needed him right now. She also knew Crane's toxin could not get her and knew that he was aware of her immunity to chemical warfare, and yet he still put here in here for testing.

 _It makes no sense. Why does he want to use me for experimentation when I'm immune?_ Ivy thought.

She then put it together and realized Scarecrow's true reason for trapping her in that chamber. He never intended for his fear gas to work on her at all. He was using her as bait for someone and Ivy already had a hint on who it would be.

 _Clever._ Ivy admit to herself.

The chamber door opened and a guard stepped inside and the door closed.

"What, come to insult me some more?" Ivy asked him.

"I would, but I'm out of anything to insult you with. I've just been told by Scarecrow to keep a closer eye on you to make sure you can't really escape. I know your bonds won't hold you here forever and when that happens, I'll put you down myself." he explained and tapped the tip of his handgun on Ivy's shoulder to make his point.

This did not scare her at all.

"Would you like a loving kiss from me, handsome?" she asked seductively. She was hoping to use her temptress-like ability to weasel her way out of her imprisonment.

The guard refused to yield.

"Oh, no! No way am I falling for that old trick of yours! I've heard of what your kiss does to people, you freak of nature." he said.

Seeing the guard inside the sealed chamber with her made Ivy realize what was going to happen. The gas would seep in, but the guard would be victimized by it when it infected him. He was to be the real test subject.

As the guards bickered with each other and ignored their prisoner, the glass ceiling shattered and in dropped Batman, ready for combat.

Ivy smirked from seeing him, knowing that her prediction came true. She despised him, but if him being here meant getting out of the chamber, then she allowed it.

Batman engaged the militia soldiers, with Ivy watching with a grin on her green-skinned face, and defeated them. He then glared at her and the single soldier left inside the chamber.

"Sir, it's Batman. He's here." said the soldier.

Scarecrow's image appeared on the giant screen behind them and he began to speak.

* * *

 **BACK TO THE PRESENT . . .**

* * *

" . . . And that's what happened at the meeting and why you found me in that chamber." Ivy said, concluding her story.

"So Bane's dead?" he asked after she told him about the Arkham Knight killing Bane in her story.

"Pretty much. What you heard about him leaving Gotham for personal reasons was a cover." Ivy said.

She stretched her back muscles after speaking.

"How's everyone feeling after the gas attack?" she asked him.

"Fine. Some are traumatized and injured from the gas. Luckily, nobody inside the building perished." he said.

"Sorry I could not spread my immunity to everyone in time. Crane and his buddy nearly ruined us both." Ivy said.

"Crane didn't give you enough time to do so. You couldn't have been able to produce a shield for the gas faster at the rate he was going to launch it." Batman said.

Ivy knew he was right about that. Producing immunity for all of Gotham was time-consuming, something she didn't have much of during the preparations.

"While I'm grateful you told me what fully went on at the meeting, your story still doesn't explain how the Arkham Knight knows me or why he's after me. If he knows who I am, why didn't he tell you or the others at that meeting? He could have given my identity away then or at any given moment tonight and that would make my mission more difficult than before with my enemies knowing who I am underneath this suit and mask." he said.

"My guess is that he wishes to savor the moment and torment you until either you die, Crane mentally breaks you, or both, whichever comes first. He's probably keeping your real name to himself for his personal amusement, similar to how Harley said Joker refused to see your face to preserve the fun he had of tormenting you." Ivy said.

Ivy then thought of something else.

"Another thing I thought of just now is that there could only be one of three, logical explanations about his knowledge of you. Maybe, and these are only theories, the Arkham Knight is either someone you knew before and probably once worked with, a relative of yours who feels was wronged by you, if you have any family that is, he's related to one of the city's supercriminals or to a victim whom you failed to save in time before. I'm just throwing in random guesses. If you really wish to find out about him, I'm afraid you'll have to confront him face to face." she said.

Inside his mind, Batman thought about what Ivy said. He felt that these were the only, possible ways for someone like the Arkham Knight to have full knowledge about him. No other villain in Gotham knew who he was (Bane did at one point seven years ago, but his memory was wiped during his second battle with Batman) and yet this guy somehow does.

Poison Ivy's suggestions replayed in his mind. Was the Knight a victim of a crime and was traumatized by it so much it made him act out? Was he related to, or friends with, someone whom he was too late to save in time from a trap or murder spree and was what made the Knight swear revenge in the form of tonight's events?

The other possibility of the Arkham Knight being a long-lost relative of his was extremely unlikely because Bruce had no relatives, not biological ones anyway. He had no siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, and especially no parents all thanks to a certain someone who has haunted Batman's memories for years. Dick Grayson and Alfred Pennyworth were the only ones he considered his family. He had adopted Dick after he experienced a tragedy that mirrored Bruce's own past and Alfred Pennyworth, the man whom his late parents, Thomas and Martha Wayne, hired as their personal butler, became Bruce's legal guardian and father-figure after his parents were killed as a child. That event ruined his childhood and life, but it was also the whole reason he eventually became what he is today.

Barbara Gordon was considered a daughter-figure to Bruce and part of the Bat-Clan in a non-related way.

Bruce tried to figure out who else the Knight could be. As Ivy said, he could be someone he knew before based on the Knight's speeches expressing his hatred for Batman throughout the night and those were clues to the theory.

The Knight was obviously a man as his voice sounded male, so women were written out of his suspects list. He had a feeling there was someone else he forgot to include.

 _But who? Who else is there that I'm missing?_ He thought.

Then he suddenly remembered one other person he knew before. Someone he took in and trained to fight alongside him and the Bat-Clan.

But this person was also someone he had not seen for a few years.

The person he was thinking of was Jason Todd, the second Robin after Dick Grayson and before Tim Drake.

But Jason being in Gotham was impossible to Bruce because Jason was dead. He once saw a video of Jason being held captive in an undisclosed area and was subjected to horrendous torture while tied to a chair. His tormentor was none other than Joker and the video was sent to him by the clown himself. On the video, Joker demanded Jason to reveal the identity of Batman and just as Jason was about to answer, Joker suddenly whipped out a handgun and shot Jason right in front of the camera, killing him.

There was no way Jason could have survived that. The event on the tape reminded Bruce of Talia Al Ghul, his late enemy/lover because, like with Jason, she too was shot to death by Joker right in front of Bruce back in Arkham City, causing him yet another loss of someone he cared for. It were as if anyone close to him would be destined to die, like bad luck.

Jason's K.I.A. status made Bruce realize that the idea of him having anything to do with the Arkham Knight or him even being the Arkham Knight, was ridiculous and he dismissed that theory from his mind and he ran out of suspects from there.

Although one thing was certain about the Knight. It was definitely somebody he had to have known in the past. That was the only clue he had.

 _No, it can't be._ He thought.

"Batman? Are you okay?" Ivy asked worriedly when he was staring off at nothing, lost in thought.

"Batman!" Ivy said louder and snapped her fingers to get his attention.

Her voice snapped him out of his thinking and focused back into reality.

"Huh?" he asked.

"I said, are you okay?" Ivy repeated.

"I'm fine. I was just thinking about what you said about the Arkham Knight." he said.

"Did you figure out anything? Any leads to who he might be?" Ivy asked.

"No, nothing. Did he reveal his face to you or the others at the meeting?" he asked her.

"Not really. He kept his face covered behind that helmet of his the whole time. He never even told us his real name. But with you being called 'The World's Greatest Detective' by everyone, I'm positive that you'll learn his name and reason for his vendetta in time." Ivy told him. "No wonder Riddler's jealous of you, what with all the babbling he makes about outsmarting you and such. Everyone in the station has been hearing his complaining all night."

"I know, I heard him too all throughout Gotham. He annoys me just as much as Joker did. Tonight, he even went as far as capturing Catwoman and is holding her hostage in the city's abandoned orphanage to get me to play his little game of tackling his stupid riddles he's laid out all over the city. If I refuse to participate, he'll kill her." he said.

Ivy made a face upon hearing about Selina Kyle. She was one of her close human friends besides Harley Quinn and together, they were known as the Sirens of Gotham. But last year, her friendship with Selina was strained when she didn't water her plants while Ivy was serving her prison sentence and her plants died as a result. When she sent Selina to fetch for her a special and rare plant that was somewhere inside Arkham City, she suddenly felt the plant's pain and death and Selina told her that Hugo Strange had killed her plant and this set Ivy off in a fit of rage.

However, as time passed, Ivy was beginning to question Selina's story and wonder if she killed the plant and lied about it. Knowing how she thinks, Ivy was starting to believe that this was true and she may have been duped the whole time.

Ivy was hoping that Batman would save Selina so she can question her about it.

As Ivy was about to say something else, she made a weird face and suddenly bent over and vomited in the bucket.

"Ivy!" Batman said and opened the chamber door and rushed inside to help her.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Yes, just a little sick, that's all." she replied.

"It's the toxin." he said.

"It's like overdosing for me." Ivy said.

Ivy threw up again while Batman watched over her.

She finished and wiped her mouth.

"You okay now?" he asked.

"I hope so." Ivy said.

She looked at her IV bag and noticed it was empty now. She figured it must have dried out sometime during her story.

Batman noticed, too.

"I . . . I need more water." she said.

"There's more water containers, but the others need them too." Batman said.

"True, I don't want to sound greedy. What about the station's showers?" Ivy asked.

"Those are unavailable for the moment. Sewage problems as a result of the gas infestation. If anyone is poured with the toxin-infected water, that would repeat what the cloudburst did." he said.

Ivy sighed. Showering was out of the question until repairs could be made.

Just as Ivy ran out of ideas, Batman had one.

"There's one other option we could try." he said.

"What's that?" she asked.

"The rain outside." he stated.

Ivy's green eyes lit up.

"You're . . . you're offering to let me soak myself in the rain outside?" she questioned.

"Yes. It can be as a temporary replacement until sunrise and the rain may heal you better than water containers or IV bags." he said.

"But won't everyone in the building disagree with that considering who I used to be?" Ivy asked. With tonight's events going on, she felt she could not be trusted among

"With the showers experiencing problems, the water bottles being conserved and your IV pouch empty, spending time in the rain is the only solution for your health issue." he told her.

Ivy was touched that he would allow her to go outside and have a private water therapeutic moment to recover. Normally she was kept away from water aside from just enough to stay hydrated, but now she was being offered a large amount for recovery purposes.

"You'd do that for me?" she asked.

"Of course. You both need and deserve it." he replied.

"Alright. But won't that man Cash disallow it?" Ivy asked.

"I'll convince him." he said and walked out of the room to speak with Cash while Ivy sat in her chamber bed, hoping she can be allowed time out in the rain.

Two minutes later, Batman returned.

"Good news, Ivy. Cash said he'll allow your request, but under my supervision. It will take place up on the rooftop and you must remain with me." he said.

"Fair enough. You may come with me and I won't try anything, not that I can anyway in my condition. Besides, why would I want to venture back into the city with all of those mischievous criminal morons running around and going crazy like it's the apocalypse? It's annoying." Ivy said.

With an agreement reached, Batman opened the chamber door again and entered to retrieve Ivy. He detached the needles and wires from her hands and quickly bandaged them from medical patches he had with him.

"Can you walk again?" he asked.

Ivy tried to stand up, but her legs gave out and Batman quickly caught her before she could hit the ground.

"That's a no." Ivy said.

Because she was still weak, Batman offered to carry her and she allowed him to scoop her into his arms again and they walked out the chamber and out of the room.

The guards outside saw what was going on and Batman answered before they could ask.

Two of them followed them for safety measures while one stayed behind to watch over Mad Hatter who was still unconscious.

While walking to the elevators, everyone inside the station glanced their way, mostly looking at Ivy and were wondering why she was being carried by Batman.

None of the officers and civilians said a word while, with the exceptions of Raymond Underhill and Kirk Langstrum, the imprisoned villains inside the middle holding cell just looked at Ivy with more of the same scornful looks they gave her earlier.

"Where are they taking the plant bitch, now?" Two-Face asked.

"Probably ta get some air or somethin'. She's probably gettin' special privileges fer helpin' Batman get rid of Scarecrow's cloudburst crap." said Penguin.

Batman and the two guards ignored their ranting as they approached the elevator, entered and closed the door and rode it up to the rooftop.

"That Professor Pyg guy creeps me the hell out even more than Joker did." said one guard during the ride.

"Tell me about it. How did he even come to Gotham anyway?" asked the other.

"Don't know, don't care. All I care about is being as far away from him as possible and I'll be relieved once he's locked up for good." said the previous guard.

Batman and Ivy remained silent during the ride.

* * *

 **Here's the second chapter of my reboot story. It's combined with two of my previous, non-canon chapters as well as light material from a chapter I was working on before I restarted the fic at the end.**

 **How was everyone's Xmas? Stuff yourselves full? Get any presents? Did ya see Santa Claus and try to kick his ass for giving you lumps of coal down your stocking?**

 **Like with before, Harley Quinn was listening to destructive-style music in the van to match her mood. Whatever it was is for you to decide.** **I set the meeting of the villains in the same spot as before. Batman's beliefs about the Arkham Knight as per Ivy's suggestions are from his point of view to make it realistic in some way. We all know who the Knight is in reality.**

 **Azrael is excluded from the cell holding the villains for now because I've yet to decide his fate like in the game. I'll get to him soon.**

 **The wiki site said Firefly met with Scarecrow too before the invasion began, but it didn't appear in the prequel comics or in the game although he did mention it in the game. I'm guessing that he and Scarecrow had already interacted before the meeting happened and that Firefly was sent to keep watch and wait to begin his arson spree.**

 **Bane's fate will remain the same as before and will be written out of this story again. The game said he left, the comics said he died. Either way, one of these options are the reason he ain't in Arkham Knight.**

 **As usual, because of the many DLC suits players can use in the game, whatever suit Batman is wearing here is your personal choice.**

 **I'm just itching to have Ivy and Bats together so badly. The waiting is killing me like Joker's blood was doing to him and Batman during AC. Is it not to you?**

 **Like the game, more than one ending is planned for this fic when I reach the final scene.**

 **Your reviews are like Popeye's spinach, they make me strong and powerful. You give me reviews, I give you more chapters filled with goodies.**

 **Oh, and Happy New Year, you loyal mother*******!**


	3. Rain Therapy

**This chapter contains material that I was working on before I started over and it was longer. I decided to split it and give you the first half. That's why I was able to finish and deliver this chapter quickly.**

 **Half of this chapter was inspired by a cutscene from MGS 5 TPP.**

* * *

It was heavily pouring outside. Puddles were everywhere. Lightning streaked across the sky.

Batman, Ivy and the two escorts were not alone up on the roof. Several more officers were there too, armed with sniper rifles and scouting for trouble on the streets below and the sky above for air drones. They were prepared to pick off any intruders who dared attack the station.

Some of them heard footsteps and turned and saw Poison Ivy being carried by Batman. They wondered why this was happening and were about to ask until the two officers escorting them told them why they were here.

When they were told Ivy was harmless, they calmed down and returned to their posts.

"Here we are, Ivy." said Batman.

"How long can I stay here?" she asked.

"Ten minutes. After that, you must be brought back inside." he told her.

"Works for me." said Ivy and Batman walked over to the roof's landing pad and gently lowered her onto the ground and stood back.

The rainwater started to pour all over her skin and she liked it.

She rolled on the ground to completely feel the puddles the rain made. Her prison shirt got soaked in the rain, but she didn't care or notice. The feeling of the cool, wet drops falling on her was so soothing to her.

She gathered up some water in her hands and happily splashed it on her face and chest. She then reached her hands to the back of her head and slowly removed the flowers that held her hair in place. They were dead anyway from the toxin and she placed them in her shirt pocket for a later burial.

She undid her hair bun and it all flowed down over her shoulders and covered all of her upper back and stopped at her lower back. She had long hair.

Ivy laid on her back and glanced at the night sky above. She waved her limbs across the ground as if she were making a snow angel with her eyes closed and a smile on her face as she was soaked in the rain some more.

The whole time, the rainwater absorbed into her skin and fed her the nutrients she needed.

 _This feels so good._ She thought to herself.

She then laid on her belly and removed her shirt, wanting the rain to touch her upper back.

Forgetting about everything around her, Ivy dosed off and went limp for the remainder of her time on the roof. She hadn't had treatment like this for a long time. She hardly had this kind of moment due to being locked away indoors all the time. Access to sunlight and water was difficult for her to come by back at Arkham Asylum and Bludhaven. The security personnel in both prisons always kept these sources away from her to keep her depowered and, as stated, only gave her an amount needed to survive daily instead of the whole thing.

She laid there, unmoving and lost in her own personal paradise.

Batman and the two officers were watching her the whole time. While the guards were cautious out of habit because of Ivy's infamous history, Batman remained certain that Ivy wouldn't betray them. He knew she was different now.

Eventually, her time expired and he went to retrieve her.

"Okay Ivy, time's up." he said.

Ivy didn't respond.

"Ivy?" he asked again.

No response. It was clear that she had fallen asleep during the session.

"Ivy, wake up." he said and tapped her shoulder.

Instantly, Ivy's eyes snapped open and she noticed Batman standing over her.

"Huh? What? What's wrong?" she asked.

"Your session time's up. I must bring you back into the building." he said.

As much as Ivy didn't want to leave her spot, she had to honor her deal. She just barely earned some trust and friendliness from him and she didn't want to breach it.

"Okay." she replied and she got her shirt from the ground and Batman shielded her with his cape to cover her from all eyes as she put it back on herself.

When she did, Batman helped her up and she wanted to see if she could stand on her own. Apparently she could, but not as much with walking. She still lost some balance and required assistance from Batman who kept his hold on her.

"Well, let's go." she said and she limped back to the elevator with the others in tow.

As they made their way back, Batman stopped.

"What is it?" Ivy asked.

"Can you still expel chemicals out of yourself?" he asked.

"Yes, but my chemicals and pheromones are blocked by the toxin surging in my blood. It's like a fever blocking one's ability to sweat." Ivy said.

"I think I know of another way you can heal." he said.

"Really? How?" she asked.

Before Batman can answer, Ivy had already caught on to what he was suggesting.

"Hold on. Are you suggesting that I expel the toxin from my body as if it were my own chemicals?" Ivy asked, wanting to be sure.

"Yes. You can let it out that way and, if I'm right about this, the gas should be gone from you. It's bound to be faster than being bathed in water or waiting for the sun to rise. Plus, the rainwater has restrengthened you just enough for you to achieve this goal. Had you done this before you were refreshed, the process would severely injure you even further." he suggested.

Ivy thought about it and realized he was right. It was worth a shot and if she was weakened further, the rain would regain her strength, just enough to remain alive.

"Alright, I'll try it. But I have to expel it into the air and away from anyone." she said.

Batman led Ivy to the edge of the rooftop. Some of the other officers looked at what was going on and were informed by the escort officers of what was going to happen and they started to back away just in case.

When everyone, Batman included, was at a distance from Ivy, she looked to the sky, took in a couple of deep breaths and summoned her vines and let them slither across her arms and hands. Like her skin, her vines also looked sickly from the gas.

Focusing hard, Ivy aimed her vines at the sky and started to release the toxin from them. It started out weak at first, but Ivy eventually forced herself to go through with it. She felt she had to begin slowly as expelling the gas too quickly would likely cause her to pass out and that would be bad for her.

The gas was seen leaking out of Ivy's vines and into the air. The officers stepped back further while Batman remained standing where he was, not moving an inch. However, he was prepared to move in if anything was wrong with her.

The process was starting to become painful for Ivy, but she was determined to keep going despite the pain. She badly wanted every ounce of Scarecrow's goddamn toxin out of her system by the end of the night.

Ivy groaned and moaned in discomfort as her vines kept spewing out more of the toxin into the air. She made sure that none of the gas reached anyone below on the ground or the officers or Batman behind her.

Her sight was starting to blur and her senses were beginning to become disoriented as she kept pushing, doing her best to ignore the pain.

Everyone and Batman kept watching in silence, unsure of what to say. For once in their lives, they were beginning to express worry for her and wondered if what she was doing would kill her.

Ivy later sped up the expulsion process and this resulted in more pain for her. Yet, she didn't stop for breaks or whatnot.

Eventually, when she had finally finished and could take no more, she gave out a final yell of pain and stopped her activity. By this time, she was exhausted and she waddled backwards, then forwards, then backward again in dizziness.

"Ivy!" Batman yelled and rushed to her as she collapsed backwards on the ground, twitching her limbs as if she were having a seizure.

Batman cradled her in his arms. Her eyes were closed and she was breathing irregularly.

He scanned her with his cowl vision to be sure of her vitals.

"Did it work? Is she . . . clean?" asked one officer was staring at Ivy as was everyone else.

Batman noticed that her skin had now changed tone. It was not cracked anymore, but it still looked unhealthy a little. Expelling the gas must have altered her skin pigmentation. That was a good thing, but it would take time to heal.

Eager to heal her, Batman gently placed Ivy back onto the middle of the helipad and stepped back and let the rain splash its way onto her body again. After going through all that trouble of getting the toxin out of her system, she needed more water to recover from her ordeal.

Ivy didn't move as the rain fell upon her form.

Just then, she woke up.

Batman knelt down to her.

"What . . . what happened?" she asked.

"You passed out for a moment after spewing the toxin from yourself." he told her.

"Did I succeed?" she asked.

"You did. Your skin looks different now, but you're still not fully recovered."

He sat Ivy up by gently pressing her upward and she looked down at her hands to see the changes and she did. Crane's toxin was no longer dwelling in her system. She did succeed in cleansing herself, but as Batman said, she wasn't fully healed yet. She still felt weak and feverish, but it worked for her.

"Now that I've expelled the toxin from my body, we should head back inside. As much as I'd like to stay here for another rain session, a deal's a deal and I don't wish to breach that." she said.

With their business done here, Batman picked Ivy up and he, her, and the two escorts, returned to the elevator and took it back into the station.

"Thank you for letting me refresh myself out there." Ivy said to him while rubbing her arms to sooth the exhausted vines inside them.

"My pleasure. I hope you're more comfortable now that the toxin's vanquished from you." he said.

"I am." she said.

Ivy had never felt so appreciated before. Even when she was human, she was still bothered and mocked for her love of plants like a nerd obsessed with video games, technology or something else. Now she was being hailed as a heroine for saving Gotham from the gas at her very painful and near-lethal expense.

The only people who shunned and rejected her for her deed were the villains and criminals locked up and still running loose in Gotham. To them, she was a traitor to their cause after rejecting Scarecrow and the Arkham Knight's invasion plan.

The elevator came to a stop and everyone stepped out.

All were glancing at them again.

As usual, the civilians and authority figures said nothing out of respect while the villains mocked Ivy and she ignored their backlash comments as Batman carried her back to the chamber room.

When they returned, the chamber door was open and Batman placed Ivy back inside and on the bed. However, the door remained open as Batman felt the need to check on her to make sure she was fine.

"Do you still feel different?" he asked.

"Other than forcing a large amount of toxin from by body, I'm fine. That session felt incredible." she said.

"Well, you should rest up more. I need to get back out there." he said and turned around to walk away.

Ivy was about to lay down when she suddenly remembered something.

"Wait!" she said and Batman turned around.

"Yes?" he asked.

"Before you go, I have something for you that can help you out." she said and reached into her shirt pocket and took out something covered in her hands.

Batman approached her again and looked at Ivy's hands as she slowly opened them and revealed what she was holding.

"What is it?" he asked.

"It's a seed, but it's not just any seed. It can drain a person of his or her physical energy, like a sugar or caffeine crash, and transfer that victim's siphoned energy to its creator, which would be me in this case. It's not lethal if that's what you're thinking of, it just exhausts a victim. All you have to do is throw it at a desired target like a grenade and when it comes into contact with a target, vines will rapidly grow out and wrap themselves around the victim and do their job. Once the vines complete their task, they will detach and dry up on the ground until dead." Ivy explained.

"Where and how did you obtain this item?" Batman asked.

"It's something I developed months before tonight's events happened. I forgot that I had it with me on the day I was captured and detained in Bludhaven and even during Scarecrow's meeting. I'm actually relieved that he and the other villains never bothered to search me when I was unconscious, otherwise they would have destroyed it on sight. I originally planned on using it against you in another confrontation in the future, but now that I no longer harbor any interest in fighting you or people for that matter, I think you'll need it more than I do and will be of good use to you instead." said Ivy.

Batman looked down at the seed and scanned it with his cowl scanner.

"That draining seed is the only one I have left. I made a few more earlier, but some of them I used on a few thugs employed by Penguin, Two-Face and even Harley during beta testing and the rest were lost when Nightwing and the Bludhaven police raided my laboratory and seized me. I hid this one in my shirt prior to my capture ever since. Use it as a last resort if things start to become difficult for you." Ivy replied.

Batman put the seed into his utility belt pouch for later use.

"Anything else you wish to know from me?" Ivy asked.

"No, that will be all." he said.

"Okay. Well, good luck out there Batman. I know you'll succeed in stopping Crane and his new mysterious friend." Ivy said and offered her hand to shake and he accepted. This was further evidence of the new growing respect the botanist and vigilante were started to develop for each other, something that has never happened before.

As tragic as tonight is, it also brought forth a new friendship between Batman and Poison Ivy. Had this event not happened, they would probably still be bitter enemies, fighting a "Human-Plant" war. Nobody ever thought them becoming allies would ever become reality, but as of tonight, it has.

After that, Batman exited the chamber, closed the door and left the room and Ivy remained sitting, thinking about what just happened.

She had just given Batman one of her most powerful and secretive plant-based weapons and shook his hand. She stared at her hand during this thought. Her near-death experience really had changed her views of the world. She would also never cheer for Batman to win before, but now . . .

While keeping to herself, Ivy was also starting to develop something else about Batman. She was starting to develop romantic feelings for him. Secretly, back when they were enemies, she did find him amusing despite their hostility toward one another. It was one of those romance tensions enemies of the opposite gender had for each other in the battlefield. It was meant as a siren-like thing, but now it was becoming much more than wicked love. She had it for a while and never told a soul, not even Harley Quinn knew. Now, it was starting to grow stronger than ever before and, the odd thing was, this time she was embracing it.

She couldn't keep denying it any longer. Poison Ivy was falling in love with Gotham's Dark Knight.

 _Well, they do say that love can bloom on the battlefield. I just never thought it would ever be me._ Ivy thought. Ironic, a human male changed her personality into something bad and now, it was changed again by another human male. However, the difference was that the first human spited her while the other one cared for her.

"You alright, Ivy?" one of the guards asked her.

Ivy snapped out of her thoughts after hearing that.

"Yes, I'm fine. Still a little dizzy from what happened back up there." she said.

"Alright." said the guard.

"Still guarding me and . . . him?" Ivy asked, not even bothering to say Hatter's name.

"Yeah. It's protocol around here." said the guard.

"I don't mind." Ivy replied and laid down on the bed on her belly and took off her shirt again, exposing her bare back a second time while her hair covered it like a blanket and she dozed off again.

* * *

 **That was fast. How was the rain scene? Ivy finally got the toxin out of her body although it was painful as hell.**

 **She gave Batman the same seed weapon she developed before AK's invasion and it now has a new ability to it and, above all, she's finally recognizing her growing attraction to the guy who used to send her back to prison. How will this turn out for her?**

 **Hope everyone has a Happy New Year.**


	4. Discussions

**Here's the long-awaited second half of my previous two-part chapter.**

 **Sorry for the long wait. An explanation is below at the end.**

* * *

Ivy woke up again to the sound of her chamber door being opened and saw another officer standing in front of the doorway.

"What's going on?" Ivy asked.

"Sorry for waking you, but we must get you out of that chamber now." said the guard.

"Why?" she asked.

"Because Batman's returning with another captured individual in tow who is to be placed here when he arrives." said the guard.

"Who would he bri-" Ivy then realized whom the guard was speaking about.

"Killer Croc? He's here?" she asked.

"He's going to be. Batman's on his way with Croc as I speak. Hurry." said the guard.

Seems that the chamber was now going to serve its purpose other than housing the meta botanist.

Ivy got up from her cot and with the help of the guard, she walked out of the chamber and stepped outside the room.

Mad Hatter was already regaining consciousness at this time and Ivy didn't want to be seen by him the instant he woke up and hear his boring chatter.

She was still weak, but could move a little better thanks to her rain session. She knew Batman had not yet used her leech seed because she didn't feel any different. The rain from earlier just hydrated her, but it still did not fully heal her. If only the GCPD building had a solar chamber or bed inside, she could really use one right about now.

By the time she was in the hallway in the back room, she and the guard were starting to hear and feel heavy footsteps approaching along with several gasps and shrieks, telling Ivy that Croc was here already.

The doors opened and in stepped more officers who were escorting some men, some who wore uniforms that resembled the ones inmates from the Iron Heights prison wore, a man who was the Iron Heights prison warden whom Ivy guessed was corrupt judging by his behavior toward everyone, and finally Waylon Jones himself. He looked a lot different since the Arkham Asylum incident. A mutation perhaps.

He was strapped in large chains and cuffs with a metal collar around his neck and he appeared to have bruises on his face, presumably from his fight against Batman.

Besides the other prisoners he was accompanied with, Croc was being escorted by the officers who were all armed with taser staffs to keep him in check.

Ivy saw Batman walking behind them to help with escorting Croc inside and she stepped back to let the captured criminals pass.

The warden and inmates went in first in the cell between Mad Hatter's and the chamber Croc was about to go into.

Croc laid his eyes upon Ivy when he noticed her standing away from him and stopped to speak to her. The officers and Batman stopped and watched while being ready to handle Jones just in case.

"Dr. Isley, you are here as well." he said in a growling voice.

"Nice to see you too, Jones." Ivy said calmly and sarcastically at the same time, not budging from the sight of him and placing her hands in her hips.

"How are you still alive and most of all, why are you not in a prison cell like all the others? Everyone at Iron Heights, myself included, heard that you perished after you saved Gotham from that chemical attack that engulfed the entire city." he asked.

"Well, you and everyone else were wrong. I'm alive because Scarecrow's stupid toxin was not strong enough to end me, although it was rather painful I admit. I'm also no prisoner here. I'm here in recovery after my ordeal. Scarecrow only thinks I'm dead and I want him to keep thinking that until he is stopped." she said.

"I thought you hated humans. You always said you wanted to destroy them and rule over plants." he said, confused over her choice.

"That side of me died tonight, Jones. Although I still love plants, I'm no longer interested in plant supremacy as I realize how deranged it sounded and how it got me nothing but trouble and incarceration." Ivy said.

"Help me get out of here!" he demanded.

"No can do Jones and I don't want to anyway." Ivy said.

"I will escape imprisonment again one day Dr. Isley and when I do, I will feast upon you slow and horribly." Croc threatened.

"You eat me Jones and you die . . . slow and horribly." Ivy shot back, referring to her toxic DNA and what the consequences of consuming her would be.

"It will still worth it." he said, uncaring of Ivy's abilities and he walked into the chamber room and was placed inside the same chamber Ivy occupied earlier and when he stepped inside and the door was sealed shut, a light mist began to spray inside the chamber and engulfed Croc all over. It was a calming tranquilizer mist meant to decrease his aggression and keep him in check.

 _What a shame. I kinda liked it in there for once._ Ivy thought upon seeing the chamber now housing Jones.

She hid behind the guards as Batman entered the chamber and approached the Iron Heights prisoners and former warden who was relieving himself in the cell toilet-sink stall. He didn't notice Croc being let in or imprisoned in the chamber.

When he finished, he turned around and saw Batman standing in front of the cell. He approached the cell door and spoke to Batman.

"You fail to see the bigger picture, Batman. My work was about protecting this country. You care more about these animals-"

He stopped when he noticed Killer Croc was inside the chamber beside his cell and panicked.

"Are you crazy?! You can't put me next to that monster! Let me out of here!" he yelled.

"Quorum were funding your experiments. I want answers." Batman demanded from the warden.

"Your wants are of no concern to me, Batman. Run along." said the warden.

"You'll talk. They always do." Batman warned.

The warden seemed unafraid of his statement. "You forget Batman. As a scientist, I love invalidating a flawed hypothesis."

Batman then approached the chamber containing Croc. As much as he despised Croc's criminal activities over the years, he also despised what happened to him on Iron Heights and still had the duty to help punish the man responsible for experimenting on him. Even criminals and inmates did not deserve what Jones went through no matter how evil they were.

"Batman!" Croc said upon seeing him.

"What happened to you was wrong, but you killed people. You have to pay for that." he said to him.

"When does warden pay?" Croc asked.

"He'll face justice for his crimes." said Batman.

"No! He will die . . . you all will!" Croc replied.

Batman turned to leave and he saw Ivy still standing in the hall. He knew she didn't know where to go now that her chamber had a new occupant and went to speak with her.

"So Croc broke out and caused trouble in Gotham, huh?" she asked.

"Not exactly." Batman said and explained what happened with Croc.

"How dreadful. I know what that's like. With Arkham Asylum out of business, how will he be contained? He can't stay in a regular prison." she asked.

"They'll find a way." he said.

"I guess I'll have to find a new place to stay in now that he's hogging the chamber." said Ivy.

"True." he said.

"I hope you're not referring to that large cell where the other crazies are in." Ivy said.

"No. But there's the interrogation room Jervis and I fought in earlier. It's empty now, so you could stay there until further notice." he said.

"Okay, that would be swell. I'd rather be in an empty room than anywhere with them, especially Mad Hatter." said Ivy and Batman led her to the room where Batman's aforementioned fight happened hours ago.

The person whom Hatter tried to have Batman kill earlier was no longer there and was somewhere else.

Ivy felt her stomach rumble. She was getting hungry and Batman caught on and grew concerned.

"Besides the rainwater, when was the last time you consumed anything?" he asked.

"I'd say about . . . sometime before my capture and detainment by Bludhaven's police force." she said.

"Would you like a snack or something to calm your nerves?" Batman asked.

"Does this place have any healthy foods? Junk food doesn't agree with me and neither do I." Ivy asked.

"Perhaps." he said and had an officer, who was just walking by, go and find something suitable for Ivy. Despite the rumors people spread about Ivy never consuming anything other than water and sunlight due to her love for plants and being one, she really did eat and drink like everyone else. Just because she was a plant being did not mean she was immune from starvation and she had to eat every day at some point to survive just like when she was human.

She remembered having steamed chards and beet juice with Harley Quinn once, both were artificially made rather than by natural means. Harley, who was unable to get over the Joker after being separated from him at the time, made a Joker-like face with her meal and that annoyed Ivy as she tried to get her to get over the madman.

She also remembered one time when Joker squirted her with his Joker Venom, only for his plan to fail and Ivy gave him a good strike to the nuts before fleeing with Harley.

Ivy smiled at that last memory. It felt great to hurt him like that then.

The officer returned with something in his hand.

"Here's an apple. It's not exactly artificial, but it's the only healthy thing I could find, the other foods we have here are just junk foods from vending machines and stuff. Will it suffice?" asked the guard.

"Yes, it'll do." said Ivy. The apple was grown naturally, but all apples and other fruits like it grow from trees. Picking them is not lethal to the tree itself and they were destined to fall off from their respective trees and be eaten at some point anyway.

The guard handed the apple to Ivy and walked away and Ivy sat in a chair near the table.

"I'm guessing that you're saving my leech seed for someone more deserving of it, aren't you?" Ivy asked Batman as she bit into her apple.

"Yes. I'm saving it for Scarecrow or the Arkham Knight." said Batman.

"You could have used it on Croc, you know. It would have made the battle against him easier for you considering his, well, bulkiness." she said.

"Yes, but Nightwing and I were able to handle him without it." he said.

"Nightwing helped you?" Ivy asked, taking another bite.

"Yes." he said.

"He still angry at me?" she asked.

"He never said and I never brought it up, but I sense that he's still thinking about what I told him about you." he said.

Suddenly, Ivy thought of something.

"Speaking of the Arkham Knight, I think I know a way to learn his identity without you pummeling anyone." she said.

"How?" he asked.

"I was thinking about using my pheromones on the detained criminals here to manipulate them into telling all they know about the Knight. One of them should know his real name and they, unlike you, are weak-minded and unable to resist my pheromones. It's worth a shot." Ivy said.

Batman thought about it and believed that was a great plan. Although Ivy's pheromones have been bad news before, this time Batman actually was open to this idea. Now that Ivy was virtuous, it would be a good idea to put her seduction ability for good use and it'd be faster than scaring the inmates into confessing.

"Alright. But the detainees are the only ones you must target and a few female guards must accompany you." he said.

"Fine by me." Ivy said.

Ivy stood up and followed Batman.

They recruited two women officers to join them as Batman instructed because, other than watching over Ivy as part of their deal, Ivy's dust did not affect women, not even lesbians.

Since the villains were surrounded by officers and civilians, Ivy could not use her power on them, at least not yet. For now, she decided to try it on the prisoners in the other holding cells first, starting with those who worked closely with the Knight.

Batman informed the officers watching over them of what was going to happen and instructed them to leave the halls. They did and it was now just Ivy, Batman, the two female officers and the inmates.

When Ivy entered, none of the prisoners made any catcalls or sex remarks at her, especially since Batman was standing beside her and remembering what he did to one of their own who was currently sitting on his cell cot, now wearing a bandage gauze on his face for his injury caused by Batman hours ago.

"What do you want now, Bat?" one of them asked.

"The Arkham Knight, I demand information about him such as his real name, his true reason for going after me, his appearance, everything." Batman said.

"We're not telling you jackshit. You can pound us all you want Bat-jerk, but we'll never snitch on the Knight, so you can forget it." said a prisoner and the rest agreed.

"Very well." Batman said and he stepped behind Ivy and she walked ahead to face the inmates, taking another bite of her fruit.

"Why is she here? What is she gonna do?" asked someone.

Ivy swallowed and said, "You'll see in a few seconds."

She raised her hand to her lips and, inhaling and then exhaling gently, she blew her pheromone scent into the air, kissing-style. It floated to the prisoners and they were starting to become a little afraid.

"No! Get that shit away from us!" one yelled.

They tried to cover their faces to avoid breathing in her pheromone dust, but it was futile. The dust overtook their minds and soon, they were brainwashed zombies under Ivy's control. Batman was unaffected like always.

"You wanna stay for the show?" Ivy asked Batman.

"No thanks. I must be going again. I'll be back later to see the results of your plan." he said.

"Alright. Take care." Ivy said and Batman left the station, leaving Poison Ivy and the two female officers with the brainwashed inmates.

"So when does the questioning begin?" one female guard said.

"Right now." said Ivy and she approached the cells. The prisoners were making big goo-goo eyes at her, having fallen in love with her thanks to the pheromone dust.

"You're really beautiful, Ivy." said one inmate.

"I love your pretty hair." said another.

"Your eyes are glowing!" said another.

Ivy dismissed the false love comments and got down to business.

"Okay, listen up. Anybody who took orders from the Arkham Knight, raise your hand." Ivy said.

Instantly every prisoner except the regular street thugs raised a hand. Most of them were militia whom the Knight commanded.

"Okay, now I'm going to ask you a few questions and I need honest answers. What do you people know about the Arkham Knight, such as his name, appearance, and most of all, his reason for wanting to kill Batman so badly?" she asked them.

While lovestruck, none of the prisoners told her what she wanted to truly know. They said they didn't know who he was or his reason for invading Gotham other than his knowledge and hatred of Batman and his want to rid the world of the Dark Knight forever. Ivy was annoyed at the lack of progress and all they told her was the usual stuff she already knew.

However, one of them did say that the Knight was a Caucasian male with a large "J" mark on one side of his face and had a look of evil and hatred in his eyes upon first meeting him unmasked. That was the first and only clue she obtained.

Close enough.

With nothing left to ask and not making any progress other than that one hint, Ivy released her hold on the detainees and they were back to normal.

"She-she infected us all! That crazy plant bitch controlled us!"

"I can't believe I fell for that again!"

"I promise to never hit on you again Ivy, just don't do that again!"

Ivy returned to the main hall to use her same tactic on the detained villains, being careful not to infect anybody else outside the large cage. To be safe, and as per Ivy's suggestion herself, her escorts told everyone to wear gas and respiratory masks to avoid her dust if it reached them.

If Mr. Freeze were here, her dust would have no effect on him. She remembered trying it on him once when she and him first met at a charity event she attended and he crashed a few years back and he said it didn't work on the "cold-hearted" as he put it bluntly. That, and his devout loyalty to Nora Fries were what guarded him from her ability.

Ivy unleashed her pheromone dust on the villains and all fell under her spell except Two-Face and Penguin who were resistant to her dust because of their dark personalities. She didn't bother infecting Underhill because he was merely too depressed from what he did and Ivy felt that his own guilt was punishment enough.

As usual, she got no answers to her questions from the possessed villains and released them from her hold and they too threw insults at Ivy for controlling them.

She then focused on Penguin and Two-Face.

"What do you two know of the Arkham Knight?" she asked them.

"Piss off, ya plant wanker!" Penguin said.

"For once, I agree with him on that statement." said Two-Face.

Ivy raised her right hand and extended her index finger.

"Tell me now or else." she threatened while raising her hand at them.

"You poison us luv, an' Batman and these officers surroundin' ya will have you locked away for killin' us and your so-called 'redemption' will go down the toilet." Penguin said, trying to call her bluff.

"Who said anything about killing you? I have something else in mind. Something worse." Ivy said in a creepy tone and approached the cell.

Penguin then started wondering what she had in mind if she had no intention of killing them while Two-Face remained standing and unmoving. He believed Ivy was no real threat to any of them, especially if, as Penguin stated, she's spending time inside a police building full of officers ready to take her down if she attacked.

"What are ya up to, Ivy?" Penguin asked.

"Tell me, have you ever experienced chicken pox, sunburned skin, mosquito bites, contact with real poison ivy plants, anything that caused you to develop a rash or burning sensation on your skin?" Ivy asked.

"Other than on the day I got this," Two-Face said and pointed to his disfigured face. "none whatsoever."

"I had chicken pox once when I was a lad but what does that have to do wi-" Penguin said before stopping when he got the idea of what Ivy was implying and it made him shiver.

"You wouldn't dare." he said nervously.

"Unless you tell me what I want to know, I would. In case you've forgotten, besides poisoning organic lifeforms, I am also capable of causing severe discomfort of one's flesh from one touch from my own skin and unlike regular itching conditions, unless I call it off, my version is endless." Ivy said as she got closer with her hand stretched out.

"No! Don't you do that ta me!" Penguin shouted, trembling.

Everyone inside the main hall observed the scene going on.

Ivy inched closer to Penguin and Two-Face with her open hand.

Two-Face seemed unafraid of this and scoffed at the scene. Penguin, on the other hand, seemed very afraid.

Noticing that, Ivy selected Penguin as her first target and she launched a vine from her arm, slid it through the cell door's bars, wrapped it around Penguin's wrists and pulled him toward the cell entrance and stuck his bound hands through the bars.

"Leggo 'a me!" he shouted while struggling to free himself from her restraints, but failed. "Don't just stand there, you imbeciles! Get her off of me!" he yelled to the other villains.

None of them bothered to intervene, some didn't want to and others didn't wish to fall prey to Ivy's tactics.

With Penguin vulnerable, Ivy placed her apple into her mouth for a moment and lightly slapped him on both sides of his face with both hands and in a matter of seconds, the affected areas started to itch badly.

"Ahgh! Make this blasted itchin' stop!" Penguin said. Ivy separated his hands apart with her vines to ensure that he could not scratch himself to relieve the pain. It was torture.

Ivy took her apple out of her mouth and said, "Only if you admit all your knowledge of the Arkham Knight."

"I don't know shit 'bout him!" Penguin insisted.

"Your face doesn't look so good, Cobblepot. Why won't you scratch it to stop the pain? If only you or someone here would reveal what I want to know of the Arkham Knight." Ivy taunted.

"I promise you, Ivy, I don't know anything' else 'bout that blasted Knight! He never told us anythin' personal 'bout 'imself 'cept wantin' Batman dead! He didn't say why!" Penguin said.

The itch was now starting to spread all over his face and if not treated, it would reach all over his body and it would be agonizing for the crime lord.

Everyone watched as the Penguin struggled and yelled from the torture he endured. Even the villains were amazed and frightened by this act.

Feeling like he had enough and not wanting to step over her new boundaries, Ivy touched Penguin's affected face again and the itching ceased. She retracted her vines and they dissolved back into her own flesh.

Penguin sighed in relief and collapsed to the floor.

"Oh, thank God!" he said while grabbing his face in relief.

Ivy and Two-Face had a deadlocked stare at each other.

"Harvey." she said.

"Pamela." he said bitterly.

"You two know each other personally?" asked one of Ivy's guards.

"Unfortunately." Two-Face replied.

"We dated once long before he obtained his current appearance and our breakup didn't end well." Ivy told them.

"That's because you poisoned me, you bitch!" Two-Face said. He and Ivy remembered that time. It was after Ivy got her powers, but were barely in development. Plus, Ivy still retained her physical humanity and had yet to gain the altered, plant appearance she had nowadays.

"My abilities were new to me at the time, Harvey. How was I supposed to know I could kiss people to death until later?" Ivy said.

"Wouldn't your plant-like appearance have shocked people if you guys were dating out in the open?" the same officer asked.

"I still had a human appearance back then. My body took more than a single day to become what I am today." Ivy explained.

"Whatever I had for you died when I almost did, Ivy! If Crane hadn't carried you off after he knocked you out at the meeting, I would've gladly finished you off myself as payback for what you did to me." he said.

"Well, it's a good thing for me that you didn't and whatever I had for you never even existed anyway. Now tell me what you know of the Arkham Knight or you too will be scratching yourself all night." she demanded.

"I don't know a goddamn thing about him other than his objective of killing Batman and even if I did, I'd never tell you. Not even your itching threat would work on me because I don't care for that kind of pain." Two-Face said, giving Ivy an angry glare.

Seeing Two-Face was right, Ivy felt it was useless to interrogate the fallen D.A.

"Now get out of my face, plant." said Two-Face.

"Which one?" Ivy replied smartly.

"Go drink herbicide formula, bitch!" he said.

"That was funny. She got you there, Dent." Firefly said.

"You know what else would be funny, Flynn? You getting double black eyes to go with those burns of yours!" Two-Face threatened and the pyromaniac remained silent. He had enough of a facial beating from the Dark Knight and he surely didn't want one coming from the duality-obsessed lawyer.

With no further business to complete, Ivy walked away and went back to the interrogation room.

She finished her apple and threw the core away in the trash when she returned, but she removed the seeds first and stored them inside her shirt.

Later, she heard Batman return with another captured villain. She peeked out the window to see who he brought this time.

It was Ra's al Ghul, the centuries-old founder and leader of the League of Assassins. Ivy heard about them, but lacked any interest. She didn't recall seeing Ra's at the meeting or Crane and the Knight mentioning him. What was he doing here and why did he look gravely ill?

From what she was seeing, Ra's was in very bad shape which resembled how Ivy looked and felt earlier. She wondered if the gas had anything to do with his condition.

After placing Ra's in a holding cell near the chamber, Batman entered the interrogation room to ask Ivy of the plan's results.

"Did you get any answers from the prisoners about the Arkham Knight?" he asked.

"Even when under my command, none of them told me the Knight's real name or his reason for wanting you killed, just the usual things we both know already. But there was one little clue I got from one of them." she said.

"What's that?" he asked.

"I was told that the Knight has a J-shaped mark on one side of his face." Ivy told him.

"That's it? That's all you got?" he asked her.

"Yes, I'm afraid so. Other than that, nothing else. I'm sorry I couldn't get more information about him." she said.

"That clue is good enough for me. I'll learn more about the Knight sooner or later." he said. What Ivy told him rang a bell in Batman's mind.

 _Why does that sound so familiar?_ He thought.

Ivy accepted his choice to obtain information about the Arkham Knight's identity his way.

"Any news on Selina?" she asked.

"I just saved her from Nygma's trap and she's now roaming Gotham, doing her usual activity of raiding places to celebrate her freedom as she called it. I also have to collect and solve more of Nygma's trophies and puzzles in order to personally confront him." said Batman.

"Is she alright?" Ivy asked.

"Yes. She left after I saved her and I don't know where she is at the moment." he said.

 _She better not leave Gotham._ Ivy thought to herself.

"By the way, why is Ra's al Ghul here and how did you catch him? I saw him through the room's window and I don't recall seeing him at the meeting or Scarecrow or the Knight mentioning him." Ivy asked.

Batman told her.

"Doesn't that go against what you usually stand for?" Ivy asked when she learned how Batman brought Ra's to the station.

"Yes and I'm not fully proud of what I did one bit. But one of his opposers, the leader of the League of Assassins' breakaway faction, made me realize that restoring Ra's would only result in him and his followers causing more casualties everywhere, possibly starting with the breakaway faction's leader." Batman said while refusing to mention Nyssa's name out of protection purposes. "After much consideration, I made my choice and what you saw of him earlier is the result. He has little time until he expires and while I admit that his upcoming death is partly my fault, it's also his too. The Lazarus Pits have taken a toll on both his physical and mental health over the years of repeated use like a drug. Similar to what you said at the Miagami gardens, nature will triumph over him."

"Are you certain that what you did with him was the right call?" she asked.

"Killing is never, ever right. But, at the same time, I admit there are times when it must be done for survival reasons when it's the only way out of a life-or-death situation. I don't like it, but it's fact." he replied.

Ivy realized he had a point. In order to preserve the lives of others, one person had to be eliminated. It was a small and unpleasant price to pay to prevent further bloodshed for those who oppose taking a life like Batman, his allies and some of the other superheroes outside Gotham's borders. She was unable to believe that Batman had broken his own well-known rule of never taking a life in order to stop somebody else's eventual lethal spree on others. She knew other people with good intentions had to resort to lethal force for good reasons, but Batman?

"But you were never put into a position like that." Ivy told him.

"Actually, there was one time it happened before and it was the first one for me." Batman said and told her about his first encounter against Bane on Christmas Eve seven years ago.

Ivy remembered that night. She heard about the bounty thing against Batman, but she wasn't interested in it, nor was she around when the events of that night happened as she had already left Gotham earlier. Plus, at the time, she was not yet the infamous plant metahuman she is known today. Sometime after she got her abilities and befriended Harley Quinn, she also learned of what became of Harley during her psychiatrist days before she became Joker's sidekick. Harley's story of how she met Joker, along with video footage she once saw of their first encounter, made Ivy sick and disgusted at first. Also, until now, she had never heard of what happened with Bane that night against Batman.

Ivy also thought of something else. No matter how many times Batman locked away criminals and villains, they always broke out of imprisonment and committed more crimes and killed more people than they previously did.

Joker was the biggest example of this trope. When the clown was alive, he would always victimize someone. Batman would find him. They fought. Batman usually won. He handed Joker over to the authorities and they sent him back to Arkham Asylum. He broke out sometime later and the cycle would restart from there. It's as if they were destined to battle each other forever until the clown's death last year broke that cycle and Ivy was thinking that Joker's demise may also have played some part in tonight's invasion. It's as if his presence kept the other villains at bay because he wished to keep Batman as his plaything and this gave the clown a purpose, a sick, demented purpose. But that barrier of his died when he did.

No matter what he did or how many criminals Batman or his allies defeated and imprisoned, someone else always paid the price for it. One wins, another loses.

Now Ivy began to feel more bad for the Caped Crusader, something she had never felt before. His regret for a tragedy that he caused unintentionally would usually make her laugh inside before, but now she no longer had the heart for that.

Seeing the disturbed look on his masked face, Ivy felt the need to say something to him.

"Both choices were bound to have bad results in the end regardless of which one you chose. Neither were avoidable and decisions like those are costly one way or another. It's one of those regrettable sacrifices one makes to keep others safe. Like you, I too don't support that kind of thinking anymore, but you're right about when it must be done in order to survive." she said, placing the palm of her hand on his chest armor plate in comfort.

Batman said nothing, but knew she was right.

"I'm probably not supposed to ask this question, but as Gotham's hero, do you ever feel guilty or partly responsible for every crime the criminals and villains of this town commit and the lives they claim before and after they're locked up and eventually freed?" Ivy asked.

"All the time, and it still does for every victim, living or dead, I've encountered tonight. Even after they are behind bars, some break out, but some can be bailed out of prison through legal means and those who are released legally have the personal option to either abandon their life of crime or resume them and if the latter is selected which is most of the time . . ."

He paused and Ivy knew what he was thinking. It chilled her.

"Sometimes I find myself wondering more and more if my crusade for justice is worth fighting for. I put a criminal away every time, but somebody always get robbed or killed for that to happen and after being freed, it starts again." he replied.

Now Ivy's mood grew more depressing after hearing those words because she realized that she was one of the people he mentioned and she thought who made his nights hard. Evil and injustice will never die, but neither will those who stand up to it. But still, it takes a toll on him every night.

Masking her emotions, Ivy changed the subject.

"Have you encountered Harley yet?" she asked.

"I'm about to when I leave." he said.

"You're probably going to capture her and place her in a cell here or somewhere else, aren't you?" she asked.

"Yes." he said.

"When you do, tell her I'm still alive, assuming she's heard of what happened with me out there, and that I want to have a word with her. Maybe I can talk some sense into her. Joker and myself were the only people in the entire world she would obey, but with him dead, I'm all she has left to look up to now. Plus, I believe that Joker's absence and my current friendship with her may make it easier to convince her to drop her act." Ivy said.

"That may work. Hope you feel better soon." he said.

"Thanks. Also, you don't need to use the seed immediately by the way, I can wait." she said.

With that, he placed his radio with her again and left and Ivy remained alone again. With the radio, Ivy would be able to communicate with Harley when the time came.

While alone again, Ivy was in deep thought, most of her thoughts revolved around her conversation with Batman about what he said of the stress and hardships of his crime-fighting lifestyle. What he told her really got to her, especially the parts about her being one of the causes behind his hardships and that his successes of defeating and imprisoning a criminal every night comes with the cost of death to a victim that the criminal terrorizes and slays. This mirrored what they said to each other back at the Gotham botanical garden.

Every person that she herself harmed and/or killed when she was a villainess made him feel worse for failing to save them and she now hated herself for it. She thought of all the people she victimized, half of them had families or would have been parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings, grandparents, to somebody. Some had bright futures and she took those things away from them. There was a reason for Batman's refusal to use lethal force on his enemies. Sure, it would save the trouble of locking away criminals, especially repeat offenders, but if he did that, he would be as bad as they were and the police would hunt him all over again as she heard from the reports of the Christmas incident seven years back and before the Arkham Knight's invasion, Ivy herself would probably not be around right now if he were the killing type during her defeats at his hands.

Her former need to force people to put plants first was similar to how a religious fascist would attempt to force his/her beliefs on others to 'save them' and she was like that before. If somebody wanted to believe in religion, environmental salvation or something else like those two, that was fine. But forcing them on others who are uninterested was wrong.

Ivy shed two tears from her green orb eyes eyes from the remorse she was feeling from her thoughts. Everything she did, she regretted them all now like before when he found her still alive. What a bitch she'd been.

 _I am so sorry I was one of the people who made you feel bad for failing others. I really am._ _I can't reverse all I have done after I became a hybrid, but I now want to try making things right with you, myself and everyone in the world, Batman. Redeeming myself won't happen overnight, but it's a start, I hope._ Ivy thought as she wiped her eyes.

Even when after the invasion concludes, there's a possibility that she may have to return to imprisonment regardless of her good deeds tonight because she was still considered a supercriminal in the eyes of the law and if that happened, she was willing to accept her fate behind bars or glass this time. At least she and Batman were now on friendly terms with each other and her new friendship with him would keep her in one piece when locked away.

But if that never happened and she was granted a pardon from imprisonment tonight, then she would abide by her promise to abandon her eco-terror lifestyle and perhaps become a new heroine of Gotham, or return to her botany profession and slowly rebuild herself. With her skills, she could make a nice living without having to resort to crime and such.

* * *

 **I am so sorry this took long. I had a deep personal problem that kept me from writing anything at all for a few months.** **I also had to rewrite this chapter twice to get it as I pictured and re-read my own fic to remember where I left off.**

 **A couple of references to the animated series, with minor alterations I made, is posted here. See if you can find them and call them out if you do.**

 **Ra's al Ghul's appearance in this chapter is from what happens if you refuse to save him in the AK game. I've written that here because it made more sense to me than the other option. Plus, spoiler alert, I didn't want Nyssa to die here which is what happens in the game if you save Ra's instead. She and her clan have packed up and are gone from Gotham for good.**

 **Sorry if this sounded too "mushy". I wanted to get Ivy's inner emotions right in order to make it as realistic as I can. I struggled internally to get it right. I'm also considering abandoning the multiple endings I planned earlier and writing an ending where the Knightfall Protocol never happens. I just don't have it in me to reimagine the ending we all know from the game even if Ivy is in it. I don't see any point in that. The game's ending kinda disappointed me at first even though it was the whole point in concluding the Arkhamverse.**

 **Review or criticize, I don't really care.**


	5. Long Distance

**Here, Ivy will, as intended, speak to Harley Quinn on Batman's video device in an attempt to convince her to drop her revenge act and a lot of other things.**

 **During the writing process, I imagined a funny scene from the "Lego Batman Movie" where Poison Ivy tries and fails to kiss Batman.**

 **This is a retype because I feel like I gave away a scene too early. It was meant for another chapter and I didn't realize I posted it here, so I withdrew the chapter and fixed it. I wiped the original out after posting it and after realizing my error, I got to retyping the chapter which took a while.**

* * *

Ivy wondered where Batman would imprisoned Harley Quinn when he captured her. She hoped he would not bring her into the GCPD building. That would be a bad idea for the moment because of the dirty, perverted male criminals who would, no doubt, hit on Harley like they did with Ivy. This would presumably send the broken-hearted jester into an even greater depression and rage than she already was and Ivy once heard that the men working for her tried to make moves on her, due to not only being single again, but also because she was the only female among them and the henchmen being . . . themselves. Not a good mix like a snake and a rodent.

Harley even once told her that, on the night of her revenge plot against Batman, one member of her group tried to hit on her, something about wanting to see her after completing their mission and Harley venomously warned him not to do that, calling herself a widow while threatening him.

Ivy hoped that the place Batman had in mind for her was void of these kind of people . . . or anyone at all like an empty room or something.

To pass the time during her stay inside the GCPD building's interrogation room, Ivy was allowed internet access on an officer's laptop, provided that she remained in observation, which she had to accept since, to her, it was one of the steps she needed to take to gain some trust among the law enforcement in here due to her vicious history. As stated, saving Gotham from Crane's gas was not enough.

She was surprised that the internet was still active even during the crisis going on all over Gotham.

She looked herself up online and found several pages about herself. The photographs she saw of her past self before her mutation made her have nostalgic moments. She read on all the good achievements she made during her botanist days. All the parties, award ceremonies and other celebrations she attended of her successes. Ivy felt very proud of those times.

Then when she came across several articles about her mutation and her activities afterward, feeling ashamed, she skipped it, not wanting to dwell on those memories again. While she knew that half of humanity was wicked, there were also a virtuous half like Batman, Bruce Wayne (not realizing they are the same person), Robin, Nightwing, Superman, The Flash, Wonder Woman, Zatanna, Batgirl, Barbara Gordon (also unaware of her former alter ego from way back) and, even though she wasn't good, but was still friendly to her, Harley Quinn.

After enough reading about herself, Ivy decided to search for anything about the Arkham Knight in another effort to aid Batman in his quest.

But when she typed in the Knight's name, nothing about the newcomer was found. No real identity, no records of any crimes committed by him anywhere before tonight, no line of employment within criminal organizations, nothing. It's as if the man in the Bat-like armor never existed at all before the invasion.

 _The man is a real mystery, but I'm certain Batman can solve it like he always does. This Arkham Knight person is somebody who must have known Batman based on what the Knight said at the meeting. One just doesn't seek revenge against somebody out of the blue unless that person knew him or her before._ She thought.

Ivy closed the computer and decided to focus on her upcoming meeting with Harley Quinn. While mentally rehearsing her speech in her head, Ivy overheard two officers outside the room talking among themselves.

"Hey man. Did you hear?"

"Hear what?"

"Commissioner Gordon's daughter just died earlier."

"What?! Are you fucking kidding me?!"

"I wish I were kidding, but no."

"Barbara Gordon is . . . is dead?"

"Unfortunately."

"How do you know about this?"

"Batman. He came, told Cash, which I overheard unseen, and he left to hunt for Scarecrow and that robot Bat guy."

"How the hell did that happen?"

"Scarecrow kidnapped her and he infected her with more of that gas crap of his. Apparently, Barbara avoided the mass evacuations hours ago and remained here in Gotham. I have no idea why she stayed when she could have left for safety from the invasion. From what I've learned, she was found trapped in the same place he found Poison Ivy in and when that toxin shit rained down on her, she grabbed a loaded pistol near her, aimed it at her own head and . . . pulled the trigger."

"Oh man. That fucking sucks . . ."

"Tell me about it. The commissioner's obviously going to lose his shit real badly when Batman catches Crane and I wouldn't blame him for it considering that I'm also a father. If my own kid were in Miss Gordon's horrible position, I'd certainly beat the holy hell outta Crane till he bleeds and cries. I might lose my job for that, but it'd be fucking worth it completely."

"Does Gordon know about his daughter's death?"

"Not yet I guess. I haven't heard anything from him for a while, but he's gonna sometime."

"Poor guy. He's gonna be broken for a long time when he hears about this."

"I know. It may be against regulation here, but I most certainly hope the commissioner gives Crane the well-deserved ass whooping of the century that he deserves."

"Yeah, me too."

The officers left and Ivy was taken aback by this awful news. She didn't know Barbara Gordon very much other than knowing that she was James Gordon's daughter, but, like with those officers and assumingly Batman, the former eco-criminal felt bad about her demise. Like with everyone, she also heard that Joker was the reason for her paralysis a few years back and forced her to remain in a wheelchair for the rest of her life. Now this? Crane had finished what Joker didn't on the night he shot her.

For the first time in her life, Ivy sympathized with James Gordon, the man who played a part in her past detainment besides Batman, Robin, Nightwing and his other allies. She definitely knew what it was like to lose something very treasured such as Aiyana. Both it and Barbara were claimed by Scarecrow's toxin and that gave her and the police leader the common goal of revenge against the mad scientist.

Ivy felt that, with her current reformation, there may have been a chance that she and Barbara would wind up as good friends, believing that, like with Batman, Barbara would also accept Ivy in given time. After all, they were both masters of their respective fields and they could accomplish so much together alongside the Dark Knight in the future were she alive.

But she was gone and all people close to Barbara Gordon could do was move on later.

After much pondering over the tragic news, Ivy returned to focusing on her current plans with Harley. She still had a task to do.

She was alone for the moment because her guard had to pay a visit to the restroom a minute ago. He muttered something about spicy bean burritos as he left, not that Ivy cared.

As Ivy thought, she suddenly realized something: while she knew how Joker perished, him being sick due to his fiasco at Arkham Asylum, she didn't exactly know the full details of his final moments in Arkham City. She's heard of rumors that say Batman killed him while others say he didn't and Harley was one of those who believed the former without a doubt. Ivy was unsure what really happened that night and if she was going to speak to Harley and she brought up Joker's death, what would Ivy say to her if asked about it?

Back when Ivy used to despise the Dark Knight, even she didn't believe the statements of Gotham's most famous crime-fighter being a killer. Ivy had a feeling they were wrong then and she still believed they were wrong now now that she was fighting with him.

There was only one way to make sure and that was hearing it from Batman himself.

 _Why didn't I ask him about this before?_ Ivy thought and grabbed for her communicator to contact Batman. She hoped she would not be interrupting anything important he was currently doing when she called.

Ivy worked the buttons on the device until she got the frequency correct and in a few seconds, his masked face appeared on the video screen.

"Batman." Ivy said to the screen.

"Ivy?" he asked. From the background's cramped appearance, Ivy realized he was driving in his Batmobile.

"What is it?" he asked her.

"Did you handle Harley yet?" she asked.

"Not yet, but I'm going to in a few minutes. Why?" he asked.

"The reason I'm calling is because there's something I forgot to ask you earlier."

"What did you forget to ask?"

"It's about Joker."

Ivy noticed him flinching lightly upon hearing the clown's name.

"I know he's the last person you want to talk about right now, but it's for my upcoming talk with Harley when you capture her. As you and I both know, she believes you killed him last year and despite half of the reports that say you did, I'm aware there are others who say otherwise and I'm one of the people who don't believe those rumors and never did when we were enemies because even I wasn't convinced that you of all people would kill him no matter how annoying he was." Ivy replied.

Batman said nothing and kept driving, but Ivy felt that he was relieved that the metahuman botanist rejected the claims that said he killed the Clown Prince of Crime.

"My point is, I need to know, from you, the full details of what happened between you and Joker that night from your point of view because Harley might bring that topic up and if she does, I wouldn't know what to say to her and I feel it may damage my chances of getting her to end her lifestyle." Ivy replied.

Batman realized she had a point judging from the way he looked at her.

"Please tell me . . . what happened with you and him? Are those who believe you never killed him right?" Ivy asked with pleading eyes. Despite already knowing about Joker's illness, how he contracted it, as she herself had it once but was lucky to cheat death and it being the cause of his death, Ivy still wanted to be fully sure.

Batman told her his story.

"So Harley is wrong about you?" Ivy asked when she learned she was right about him.

"Yes. His death was his own doing. As much as I despised him for all the evil he did, I tried to save him and letting him die would have gone against what I stand for." he said.

Ivy now got the full details behind the events of the Arkham City theater and knew what to say in case Harley mentioned it as Ivy suspected she may do so.

"Will that be all?" Batman asked.

"Yes. I have everything I need for my plan to work. Thank you and contact me when Harley's contained." Ivy said.

"Will do." Batman replied and the lines ended.

Ivy placed her radio on the table and took deep steady breaths to help in mentally absorb the new information and when she was finished, she went back to rehearsing her speech to Harley.

She wanted it to be perfect and very convincing for the clown woman. One little slip-up could end her plan and Harley could become Ivy's enemy which the plant woman wished to avoid, especially after what happened between them last time when she attacked Harley and Batman when they had a truce against her.

Feeling sore on her behind from sitting down too much, Ivy stood up and paced around to walk off the numbness while still thinking to pass time.

Sometime later, her communicator rang again and Ivy answered.

"Batman, what is it?" she asked.

"I've dealt with Harley." he said.

"Is she alright?"

"She's fine. I put her in a holding cell in an undisclosed location which I cannot say for now."

"She still angry at you for Joker?"

"Yes."

"Who ya talkin' to, Bat-brain?!" asked an angry voice whom Ivy instantly recognized.

"May I speak with her?" she asked.

"Of course. Hold on." said Batman and he turned his head away from the camera and said, "There's someone who wants to speak to you, Quinn." and in a few seconds, his communicator was now in the hands of Harley Quinn whom Ivy was now looking at through the feed.

"Hello Harley." Ivy said calmly.

"Red?!" Harley asked in bewilderment of seeing her image. "How are ya still alive?! I heard all over that Scarecrow's toxin stuff did ya in until B-man stopped it and I thought you were pushin' up daisies, so to speak."

"It's true that I almost died, but I survived and I'm currently recovering from the gas's effects somewhere. I still have some symptoms, but they'll vanish in time." said Ivy. "Where's Batman?"

"He just left after givin' me his radio thingy. It's just you n' me now." said Harley.

Despite seeing Harley as a friend, Ivy refused to reveal her location out of safety concerns. She felt that if Harley knew where she was, she might blab her whereabouts to Scarecrow, unintentionally or not, and that would be bad for her.

As for Harley, as happy as she was from seeing her green-skinned friend alive again, she began to develop a look of guilt on her face.

"What's wrong, Harley?" Ivy asked.

"When I heard about you dyin', I was . . . I was incredibly depressed. I thought 'First my Puddin' now my plant friend? How much do I gotta lose? Why do God and Batman hate my guts so much?' I was going to snap further than I already have, maybe even off myself since I felt I lost everything and had nothin' ta live for. But now you're alive and that's one good thing that came outta tonight. You're a real sight for sore eyes Red, an' boy are my eyes sore like hell." Harley replied.

"Glad to hear that, Harley . . . in a way." Ivy said after learning Harley planned suicide later if she hadn't contacted her.

"Pammie. Do you remember anything of what happened at that meeting with the others?" Harley asked.

"Yes, I remember everything . . . everything except the part where I was knocked unconscious. Care to enlighten me on that?"

"Yeah, about that Pammie . . ." Harley said and explained what happened to Ivy after she was knocked out, much to the botanist's disturbance.

"I hated what Scarecrow planned fer ya that time, Pammie, I really did. But I only agreed ta help him with it ta make sure he didn't hurt ya while you were sleepin'. Even while I was plottin' against Batman and his friends, I still thought of you. I'm guessin' you're pissed at me for helpin' him, arentcha?" Harley asked.

"I admit that I **am** a little irritated after learning what you just told me, but . . . I just don't have it in me to hold anything against you forever, especially since you told me you kept me safe from harm when I was unconscious and vulnerable."

"So . . . we still good?" Harley asked.

"I suppose." Ivy said and Harley sighed in relief.

"Do ya remember some good times we had at Arkham, Red?" Harley asked.

"Parts of it. Late-night poker, chess games, movies and tv shows in the rec center, the sporting events we played in Arkham's yard like soccer, baseball, table tennis, and all the rest." Ivy said.

"Yeah. I wasn't very good at chess

"Now enough about me, what happened to you?" Ivy asked.

"I was in the middle of plannin' somethin' big and awesome until the 'Crappy Crusader' and the 'Doy Wonder' interfered and screwed everything up for me." Harley said with her face pouty from the event.

"Tell me." said Ivy.

Harley told her and when she finished, she turned the video camera and showed her plant friend four dead people laying outside her cell, all dead from gunshot wounds.

Upon seeing the dead victims, Ivy suddenly identified them as the people she heard about on Gotham's news reports. She remembered hearing that they were either missing or went insane and got arrested for committing various and horrible crimes that they would usually never do.

The four victims were a famous vocalist, an athlete, a former employee of Queen Industries and a schoolteacher.

They were inside Batman's secondary hidden base of operations the whole time and they were now deceased and from what Harley told her about them, Ivy now knew why what happened to them came to be.

"You said one of them killed the others and then himself?" Ivy asked.

"Yeah. The old guy did it. It was unexpected and so fast, I had no idea he would off 'em all. He even held me at gunpoint, something which, I also admit, didn't expect during the heat of the moment.

"You realize, Harley, that what the elderly man did would be something the real Joker would have done to you, right? I do remember reading a news story about what happened with you and Joker from your heist at that abandoned amusement park island a few years back.

"Yeah, I know. I recall Mr. J pointin' his gun at me during our battle with Robin and the Bat-chick. Don't worry, Red. It was all scripted, 'cept fer the part where we got beat by those two goody-goody morons." said Harley.

Ivy then noticed a familiar figure inside one of the far cells in the video.

"Harley, who's that?"

"Who?"

"That occupant in the cell on the other side of your own."

Harley turned her head to see where Ivy was pointing at and exclaimed, "Oh, you mean him." and focused the camera on the extra prisoner, allowing Ivy to get a good look at the person and when she saw who it was, she was surprised.

"Is that Robin? Why is he locked up, too? I thought you said he helped Batman round up the Joker-infected." she asked.

Apparently, Harley left out that part from her story.

"He did and after my new Jokers all bit the dust, he and Bats talked ta each other and Robin was about ta lock him away and throw away the key until B-man hurled him inside and shut the door and Batman walked away while Robin screamed his head off about his situation. It was friggin' hilarious!" Harley replied.

"Why would Batman lock his own partner away?" Ivy asked.

"From what I've heard, it's 'cause a' Bats once bein' infected with the same thing as them." said Harley.

Ivy immediately felt her heart rate increase and she felt surprised further.

"What? Batman was infected, too? How did that happen?" she asked, being careful not to show panic in front of Harley for a certain reason.

From her reaction, when Batman told her his story about Joker, he withheld his own infection from her.

"I'm guessin it's 'cause of when Joker infected him with his blood back at Arkham City." Harley answered in a "not a big deal" tone.

"Wait, _Joker_ infected him?" Ivy asked.

Harley nodded and told her how it happened.

Ivy was horrified from learning that the whole time, Batman, the protector of Gotham, had been living with a strain of Joker's TITAN-infected DNA since Arkham City and Harley was partly the reason for it.

"B-man didn't say how long he kept those other Jokers, but I'm pissed that I didn't know about it till tonight. All of 'em had Joker in'em and I wanted ta have 'em around to remember my beloved Puddin' by, like a souvenir you get from a big concert festival or somethin'." Harley said sadly and Ivy made a disgusted face while the jester wasn't looking. Harley treated those infected people like objects to keep as a memory to her psychotic dead lover.

"Harley, despite those four people looking and sounding like Joker, you and I both know that they were not really him. They were just infected with his diseased blood and they inherited his appearance and traits as a result of the diabolical transfusion. It's not the same as having the real deal around." Ivy replied.

"I take what I can get, real or not. I did the same thing with that Deadshot guy a few years back when Joker was locked away at Arkham and it made me feel good for a while until my real lover came back." Harley said.

That was unnecessary to hear. Ivy thought. Harley made herself sound like a prostitute there.

"Hey Pammie. Now that you're not dead anymore, do ya think ya can track me down and break me outta this dump I'm in? Bat-brain's gone and now's the right time for a jailbreak somewhere in this town." Harley begged.

"I can't." Ivy replied.

"Why not? I helped you break outta that jail in Bludhaven and I assumed you'd do the same fer me when I got caught too later on. Wait, did B-man put ya in some kinda anti-plant place like that cell a' yers in Arkham ta keep ya from helpin' me?" Harley asked.

"No Harley. I'm not imprisoned. I cannot free you because I'm now helping Batman deal with the rest of the invasion and I don't wish to breach my new allegiance with him." Ivy explained.

Harley grew confused and angry upon hearing that.

"What? You're workin' for that pointy-eared bastard?!" she asked angrily and then stopped for a moment to think of something. "You helped him get rid of that gas cloud thingy, didn't you?"

"Yes, I did."

"That was you?! Red, you almost died out there! I coulda' lost you like I did with my Puddin'! I thought you hated B-man and yet you almost died fer him?!"

Then Harley calmed down and said, "Waitaminute, waitaminute! He's blackmailin' ya, ain't he? He's got somethin' bad on you to keep you in line! Typical thing fer him to do, that sneaky son of a-"

"Blackmail has nothing to do with why I helped Batman with the cloudburst and why I still am now, Harley." Ivy replied to stop her rant. "I'm doing it because I want to and I'm finished with fighting against him. I don't hate him anymore."

"Why in the blue hell would ya quit hatin' B-man? He practically ruins other people's fun and happiness all the time, like yours and mine! You're always callin' him names like 'Fleshy Meatsack', 'Weak Human', 'Plant Killer' and all kinds of things like that." Harley said.

"Not anymore. You've heard of life-changing experiences people go through when they cheat death?" Ivy asked.

"Yeah, I'm familiar with those stories. It's when you're almost gonna die, but then ya survive whatever was gonna kill ya and ya try ta change yerself after gettin' another chance at livin'." Harley answered.

"Well, I went through one myself after surviving the toxin attack. Batman found me still alive after absorbing all that gas and I felt very weak and he took me to safety and helped nurse me back to health, mostly. After that, all of my dislike for him, along with my need to conquer the world with my plants, dropped instantly and was replaced with a new need to help him stop Scarecrow and that Arkham Knight person."

Harley pouted.

"I seem to recall you going through a similar thing a few years back in your early start as Joker's sidekick." Ivy said.

"Whaddya mean?"

"I'm talking about the time you almost drowned when the car you rode in with Joker crashed into Gotham's ocean bay until Batman saved you." Ivy said.

"That was once and I didn't get out of Mr J's car in time, so what happened to me that night was my own fault." Harley said.

"You were trapped inside the car and couldn't escape before it plunged into the waters. How was that your fault?"

"B-man was chasin' us and Mr. J panicked and had to leave his own car to avoid gettin' caught while I stayed behind. I was unconscious and he . . . he 'kissed' me ta revive me and that's how I wound up imprisoned the first time."

Harley then had a sudden thought about her experience.

"Come to think of it, it's _his_ fault I almost drowned! If he hadn't followed us, it wouldn't have happened in the first place! He tried ta kill us both, but almost killed me instead!" Harley said, growing angry at the thought and blamed Batman for her near-death that one time.

Ivy didn't have time to hear her story and changed the subjects.

"I asked Batman to allow this meeting between us to happen as soon as you were caught because I have something important to tell you." Ivy said.

"What?" Harley asked.

"I need you to stop what you're doing."

Except fer sitting and standing, I can't do much on account of this cramped cell B-man and his bird pal stuffed me in." Harley said.

"No, I mean I need you to stop your activities and trying to end Batman indefinitely." Ivy replied.

"You're askin' me ta stop tryin' ta avenge my late lover? Fat chance, Red! That toxin stuff must've have scrambled your brain!" Harley snapped.

Ivy ignored that comment and kept talking.

"He never killed Joker, Harley."

"Yes, he did! I saw him carryin' Joker's dead body outta that shithole theater back in Arkham City! I was there, Ivy! How can ya believe Bat-freak didn't kill him when he was clearly walking out with my Puddin's corpse in his goddamn arms?"

"Joker was infected with that TITAN disease from the asylum incident." Ivy said, making Harley roll her eyes in annoyance.

"Yes Ivy, Joker got infected with it that night. I haven't forgotten it. Everybody knows the story. We infected Bat-jerk with it ta force him into findin' a cure for him and when he did, he only cured himself while my Joker got nothin' but an early grave. That asswipe in the Batsuit either finished him off or he allowed Mr. J to shrivel up and die from his dreadful illness. Either way, he killed the most amazing man I've ever had!" Harley said with a sadder tone of voice along with a hint of anger at the end.

"Did it ever occur to you that maybe Joker succumbed to his illness early before Batman got a chance to treat him?" Ivy questioned.

"That's what I hear people say all the time. They say B-man never killed my Joker, but I ain't stupid. Crazy but not stupid. I know what really happened back there. It's the only explanation to why Mr. J ain't with me no more." Harley said and nearly cried at the memory.

"Harley, Joker was already dead before Batman got to cure him. He was too late to save him. Just because he was carrying Joker's corpse did not mean he killed him or let him die."

"How would ya know, Red? You weren't there when it happened!" Harley said angrily. She was very mad at her for siding with their nemesis and for defending him over Joker's death.

"Actually Harley . . . I was. I witnessed the final confrontation between those two and I've never told anybody about it." Ivy said. She decided that now was the right time to put her plan into action.

Harley gasped. "You . . . you saw . . . what happened?" she asked.

"Yes, I did." Ivy said while putting on a false sad face. "I never told anyone because Batman and I were still enemies back then. And besides, even if I did report it earlier, I had no evidence to back it up and with me being labeled a 'meta-criminal', nobody would have believed me about it. People wouldn't have taken me seriously had I told what I saw that night." said Ivy.

Harley thought it over and realized her plant friend may be right. Hypothetically speaking, if Harley were to report something to the police, all they would have done was dismiss her as a nutjob and possibly arrest her on the spot. Why would they believe a tip coming from her, the accomplice/girlfriend of the dead Joker? A woman who despised all law enforcement and helped in the kidnapping, torture and slaying of many people in the name of her 'Puddin'?

"You . . . you saw Joker die?" she asked.

"Yes. What you believe what happened between him and Batman is wrong." Ivy said and she told Harley the same story Batman told her about Joker's death, but slightly altered parts of the story to make it more believable for Harley by stating her "eyewitness accounts" and ending her tale by saying she slipped away and fled the area unnoticed by anyone and remained by herself after Arkham City's shutdown until her recent capture by the Bludhaven police prior to the invasion.

"To put it simply Harley, Joker's death was his own fault and I mean more than just the TITAN chemical he used 2 years ago, If he hadn't attacked Batman while he was holding the antidote, he would still be alive tonight, and presumably incarcerated until tonight's events where he'd probably be doing who knows what during Gotham's invasion with you by his side. He ended his own chances for survival the instant he wounded Batman, all for a laugh or so he called it. Come to think of it, he doomed himself the instant he used the TITAN formula at Arkham. " Ivi said, finishing her half-truth tale.

After finishing, Harley looked around in thought and Ivy wondered what she was thinking from the blank look on her painted face. Did she buy Ivy's lie or did she choose to remain in denial and still stick to blaming Batman?

Ivy waited patiently for Harley's response to her "story". She hoped her plan would work otherwise . . .

 _Please believe it._ She thought to herself.

Harley then turned to the video screen to look at Ivy and gave her response.

"You're sayin' that all this time, I blamed B-man for killin' my Puddin' when it was that horrible illness of his that killed him first?" she asked blankly, like she was mentally broken or something.

Bingo. Ivy thought. The moment was bittersweet, but it had to be done for good reasons.

"I'm afraid so, Harley."Ivy said.

 _If there is a Hell, then the Joker is already there rotting._ She thought.

Harley looked lost again.

"Harley? Are you alright?" Ivy asked her.

"My whole goal for an entire year was to get even with Batman for makin' my beloved Clown Prince push up daisies. I plotted. I gathered up my Puddin's followers. I toughened myself up. But after what you just told me about how my Puddin' really went, I'm . . . I'm not sure what to do or think now. I still don't like Bats one bit, but still . . . I-" she tried to say, but couldn't.

"Harley, now that I've told you the truth, do you still wish to resume your crusade for vengeance?" Ivy asked.

Harley wiped a tear from her eye, smudging her paint again.

"I don't know if I can anymore. I hate him, but now I don't see any point in killing someone who never off'ed my love."

She sighed before continuing.

"With my Joker gone, I guess I truly am alone in the world now."

"That's not true, Harley. You still have me. You'll always have me even in the darkest of times like tonight." Ivy said in a soothing voice. Unlike her "story" about Joker's death, Ivy meant what she said to the sad clown woman.

"You-you mean that, Red? Even after I was mean ta ya earlier?" Harley asked.

"Certainly. Your harsh behavior is part of the grieving process and I can't blame you for it. I did the same thing a few times, remember? You don't have to be vicious and cruel to achieve things in life, Harley. Things can be better if you end your crime life as I suggested earlier. I'll even help you out with mental therapy so you don't have to go through it alone, but my version is to be different from the harshness we both received at Arkham. What do you say?" Ivy asked, hoping Harley would say yes and accept her offer.

"It . . . sounds good and all Red, but . . . I need some time to think everything over. What you just told me about Mr. J is . . . it's really, really big and stuff. I-I-I can't give an answers like that yet." said Harley.

"That's fine by me, Harley. Take your time. Again, I'm here for you if you need me. I'll see you later." Ivy said and deactivated her radio.

While alone again, Poison Ivy had some hopes that her plan for Harley may work, while upsetting her greatly as a cost. It would take some, or a lot, of time. But if it would rid Harley of her criminal background and her desire for blood, then the hard work and many days of emotional comfort would be worth it to her.

 _I can't believe I just lied to her about Joker. I hate doing that to her, especially at this time in her life, but it was the only way I could convince her to end her plans of killing Batman. The only truth to my story was that she was wrong about Batman killing him, even if I didn't actually see it._ She thought.

All of a sudden, she felt a change happening to her body. It was not of pain, but the opposite. It felt good to her. Her pain, scarring, and light fever were starting to vanish, as if she were healing and she wasn't in control of it.

Within a minute, it stopped and, rather than weak and sickly, she felt physically healthy again. Her skin was back to its light, green color before her toxin infection. She was healed completely.

 _How did that hap-_ She thought until she instantly figured it out.

 _Batman!_

It seemed that Batman had finally used her Leech Seed on someone and it restored her back to full health, just as she designed the seed to do.

But who did he use it on?

Her guard returned and asked what happened to her when she was seen healthy again and Ivy explained.

Much later, she was visited by Batman and when he entered her room, the guard left again, leaving the two alone to speak.

"What happened? Did your plan work?" he asked her.

"I hope so. Harley and I had a chat where she told me about her scuffle with you and Robin, what happened to her afterward, and I told her a half-altered version of your story of Joker's death. I told her that I was there and saw what happened between you and him to make it more believable for her." she explained.

"Did Harley buy it?" he asked.

"I'm not fully sure at this time. She said she wanted some time to think it over and that it was really disturbing to hear after thinking you killed him for almost a year. I hope I succeeded in changing her mind about you." she replied.

"So do I. If there's anyone who can convince her that she was wrong, it's you Ivy." he said.

"Thanks. She also said that she and Joker infected you with the same disease he had at Arkham City, which also infected the four Joker-like people whose bodies I saw on the video feed." she said.

Batman's face fell and Ivy began to suspect something.

"It's true. Joker infected me with his blood that night to force me to seek an antidote for him and myself and despite taking the antidote, I still carry some of the strain inside me right now." he said.

Ivy's eyes were in shock. Harley was right.

"What? Are you alright?" she asked in concern.

"Truthfully . . . no. Ever since the incident at the Ace Factory chemical plant earlier, everywhere I go, I see hallucinations of Joker taunting me. The cloudburst assault from earlier strengthened my visions for the worst and I nearly succumbed to it. I even had to lock Robin away just to guard him from me in case I . . ." he said, unable to say what he knew.

Ivy realized what he had in mind, but tried to ignore it.

"Yes, Harley also showed me footage of Robin inside a cell at wherever you imprisoned her." Ivy said.

"I really did not want to do that to him, but what choice did I have? He's going to be very angry with me for it after this invasion ends and I probably deserve whatever wrath he throws at me. I'd feel the same way too if it were the other way around." he said.

During this time, Batman saw Joker standing next to Ivy with that usual stupid grin of wickedness on his peeling face.

 _"It seems that you and 'Veggie-Woman' here are getting more friendly with each other every time you visit her and I have a feeling she has more than a "friends-only" view of you, Bruce! Poison Ivy has the hots for you! How precious! Bats and Ivy sitting in a tree! K-I-S-S-I-N-G! If you can survive her kiss of death, that is! First comes love, I can't imagine what it's be like for you and her to have sex like you did with Talia Al Ghul in Metropolis! Gross! Then comes marriage, the idea of the famous Dark Knight getting hitched in a chapel with the city's infamous eco-obsessed woman gives me the creeps, and I can't even feel my own skin 'cause I'm dead and in your head! Then comes Bats Jr. in a baby carriage, not that the walking garden here can have any kids since her plant DNA prevents her from doing so. You can shake her all night long and any other night you want Bats, but no matter what, Poison Oakey here can never have her own little bun in her oven. I bet not even Superman himself could impregnate her with his Kryptonian genes if he wanted to! But wait, what will that mean for Kitty-Cat? She has a thing for you and now, Ivy does can't fall for more than one woman, it's against society rules! But then again, that's why they call you Gotham's handsome, wealthiest, playboy billionaire bachelor! You have all the money and all the power which attracts the hotties to you like a magnet! It's like your version of 'sex, drugs and rock n' roll' for traveling musicians, only you don't perform any tunes in night clubs and such. I bet Elvis would be jealous of you if he were still alive, why thank you, thank you very much! If Talia were around, that'd make it a love triangle and the effects of that? I can imagine those three duking it out over you, like a three way match they show on pro wrestling!"_ Joker said.

Batman ignored the vision's ranting and stared at Poison Ivy.

"Are you seeing him right now?" she asked after noticing his thousand yard-like stare beside her.

"Yes. He's taunting me about you." he answered.

"You must not allow these visions of yours to overwhelm you. They aren't real. Nobody who supports you wants to lose you to it, not even . . . me." Ivy said.

 _"Perhaps this room should play love songs for you and her, Bats! Hoo-hoo! Kissy, kissy!"_ Joker's ghost said while making kissing noises to annoy him.

"I won't let it conquer me. Just please don't tell anyone about my situation." he said, ignoring the vision.

"I won't, I promise." Ivy said and decided to change the subject to get his mind off of his personal issues.

"Did you encounter the Arkham Knight?" she asked.

"Yes." he said.

"What happened?"

"He kidnapped Commissioner Gordon to draw me out. He and I engaged in a fight. I won and while I was distracted for a brief moment, he vanished. I can't track his whereabouts anywhere in the city and I haven't heard from him since. It's as if he left Gotham for good." said Batman.

"I felt the effects of my seed I gave you earlier. Who did you use it on?" Ivy asked.

"I used it on the Knight. When he was least expecting it, I planted the seed on him and it started to do as you said it would do. It sprouted vines, wrapped him in them and drained him of his strength, weakening him until he could no longer fight. However, like I said, he was still able to flee despite being weak." he said.

"That's why I feel different. You transferred his energy to me."

"How do you feel now?"

"Much better. It's as if I recovered while exposed to the sun. I feel great again." Ivy said while stretching her arms above her head to demonstrate her new health.

"Glad you're feeling better." he said.

"Thanks. Did you find out who the Knight was before he got away?" she asked.

 _"Yes Bats. Did you?"_ said the vision sarcastically.

Batman hesitated to answer her question and Ivy sensed something was amiss with him.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"I . . . I saw his face. He had a J-shaped mark on his face just like you described from your interrogation of the GCPD's detainees." he replied.

"Who was he?" she asked.

"He was . . . someone I knew a long time ago."

"Really? You met the Knight before his invasion?" she asked, stunned of the news.

"Yes." said Batman and he told her how he knew the Arkham Knight. But, aside from telling her his first name, he didn't reveal the Knight's past identity as the second Robin of his group. But he did tell her what happened that changed him from friend to foe.

The story disturbed Ivy.

"How did he survive that?" she asked when he told her of his "death" at the hands of the Joker.

"After our fight, I instantly figured out one of two reasons how he survived: he was wearing body armor or he was shot somewhere non-vital. I'm guessing Joker either missed anything fatal by mistake or he spared him intentionally in order to turn him into a weapon to use against me, which, sadly to say, he succeeded at doing when he launched his assault on the city. Even in death, Joker is still getting to me and it's more than the hallucinations. I can't help but feel that I'm partly responsible for his transformation into the man he is today due to my failure of finding him during his time as Joker's prisoner." he said and sat down.

 _"Hey, it ain't my fault Jason hates your guts, Bruce. Well, maybe it is. But he hates you more for ditching him for that other Robin you work with. Would you be pissed too if it were the other way around?"_ said the vision.

Ivy walked over to Batman with her own chair in her hands, placed it in front of him and sat down.

"Batman, what happened with the Knight and you not finding him wasn't your fault. You couldn't have known where he was and Joker kept him well hidden from you. Joker made him into what he is now, not you. The Knight doesn't see it yet because, from what you've told me, he's too clouded by his rage to listen to reason. Nobody's perfect all the time, not even you, and everyone makes mistakes every day. Be patient with the Knight. He'll come to terms and he will forgive you for what happened to him as you've done with me." Ivy said while staring at him with caring eyes and placed her hand into his and held it gently for comfort.

Batman looked at her hand taking his. Ivy wasn't hateful anymore, except against Scarecrow and the other criminals of Gotham.

 _"Aww, how sweet! Dr. Ivy's holding your hand, Brucie, and with affection instead of the urge to break it like Bane did with your back that one time! It's official, she LOOOOVES you! When your time comes and you go to where dead people go, I bet Talia's gonna want to kick your ass for eternity upon your arrival! Now that, I'd love to see! Hee-hee!"_ said the Joker hallucination.

Ivy retracted her hand after a few more seconds of holding it.

"Besides solving the mystery of the Arkham Knight and healing me, why are you back?" she asked.

"I've brought someone back with me." he said.

"Another criminal?" she asked.

"No, Barbara Gordon." he said.

"Barbara Gordon? James Gordon's child? But she's dead. I heard some of the officers say that she was kidnapped by Scarecrow and killed herself while infected with his toxin." she said in surprise.

"Not exactly. I was infected with his gas again after her kidnapping and her death was another mere hallucination." he said.

"So the news of her demise was false and she-" she said.

"-is still alive." Batman finished.

Ivy was relieved to hear the news. She didn't know Barbara Gordon very well like everyone else in the building, but she was still glad she wasn't dead.

"Oh, thank goodness she's alive. When I heard about it, believe it or not, I was actually saddened. Not happy of her, another human, being dead this time. I was just as upset about it as everyone else was. I assume you were too." she said.

"I was, badly. But not anymore now that she lives." said Batman.

"Did Gordon know about what happened to her?" she asked.

"Yes and he was deeply upset and enraged about it. But he was relieved when he discovered she was still alive. But unfortunately, Scarecrow took him while he tried to kill Barbara and I saved her, but at the expense of his capture by him and his men and I brought her back here to recoup from what she's been through." he said.

"Does she know I'm here?" Ivy asked.

"Yes. I told her about you during the drive here. She didn't believe what I said about you at first, but after some further convincing, she accepted the truth about you. She's in the main lobby." he said.

"May I see her?" she asked.

"Certainly. Follow me." he said and they both stood up and walked out of the room and soon, she was back in the main lobby where, again, she received stares from everybody.

They were still cautious around her. That's because some of them were once victims to her past attacks on them.

One woman gave her a scowl because, unknown to anyone, she was the wife of one Arkham guard whom Ivy possessed on the night of her rampage across the island.

Most of the imprisoned villains cowered at the sight of her, especially Penguin. He was upright terrified of Poison Ivy.

"Keep that witch away from me, Batman!" he said as he stepped away from the approaching vigilante and botanist metahuman.

Ivy sensed Batman was going to ask about Penguin's behavior and she answered before he could ask.

"I gave him a really bad skin rash when I interrogated him for answers about the Arkham Knight since my pheromones were useless against him. It seems he had a rash issue when he was younger and it terrified him. He had nothing interesting to tell me and I cured his rash afterward. I think I made him develop a phobia of me or all plant life for the rest of his days." she said.

"It's true, Batman." said an officer standing next to them. "Poison Ivy here made Penguin itch so bad, he screamed and practically begged her to stop it. I've never seen him so scared like that before."

"I did not!" Penguin lied.

"We all saw it, Oswald. Even I found it extremely funny, the way you were when Ivy interrogated you." said Two-Face.

"Shut it, Dent!" Penguin demanded.

"I can replay your screams and pleas for mercy in my head all day and night. It's music to my ears." he said.

"I'm gonna give you a headache and bleedin' ears every day and night if ya don't shut the hell up this instant!" Penguin threatened.

"You can threaten me all you want Penguin, but you can never erase what happened between you and Dr. Isley earlier. Imagine how other gangs and organized criminals will react when word of your incident leaks out of these walls. None of them will want to do business with you and that will disrupt yours, assuming you rebuild it the next time you escape from prison." said Two-Face.

"You would not DARE tell a soul 'bout what Ivy did to me!"

"Maybe I will, maybe I won't. But there's no such thing an an eternal secret. If I don't tell, someone else will eventually. Secrets like this always have a way of getting out and the people in this cell besides us are all eyewitnesses." he said with a grin of evil.

"Just shut up and leave me alone, ya goddamn, half-faced imbecile!" Penguin said and placed his hands over his temples as if he was having a headache.

"It's a bad time to be you, Oswald." said Two-Face.

"I see." said Batman.

"They should change his name from 'The Penguin', to 'The Pussy'." said an officer who laughed at his own joke.

Batman and Ivy kept walking until they found who they were looking for.

In a private, but open-door area of the main lobby next to the elevator was a woman in a wheelchair and she had her back turned to them, appearing to be busy typing away on a computer.

It was Barbara Gordon.

Batman approached her while Ivy stood in her spot, unsure of how to approach the daughter of the police chief without causing her to be nervous despite what Batman said about what he told her.

"Barbara." said Batman.

Barbara turned her wheelchair around and saw Batman and, to her surprise, Poison Ivy herself.

"Poison Ivy?" she said upon seeing her.

Batman did a "come here" motion with his hand and she walked over to them.

"Hello Miss Gordon. Don't worry, I'm with him now and I come in peace." Ivy said.

Barbara straightened her glasses and looked at Batman, remembering what he told her during the ride to the station, and then at Ivy.

"I know. He told me all about you during tonight's problems. In that case, it's a pleasure to meet you . . . as a friendly face this time." she said.

Barbara was fully aware of what Ivy did to Robin sometime before the Arkham City events, but she kept it to herself for the moment and didn't wish to stir up any arguments against her right now. To her, Batman may have forgiven Ivy, but Ivy had to earn Barbara's forgiveness.

"Thank you and I hope I can earn your friendship in time as I've done with Batman." Ivy said.

"It's a lot to take in at this moment, what with everything going on and you being a metahuman criminal, to the eyes of the system, I mean. But I too hope to achieve it in the future." said Barbara.

"I heard about your mishaps with Scarecrow and that Arkham Knight person." said Ivy.

"It's true. They both kidnapped me and used me as bait for Batman and my father." said Barbara.

"Are you okay?" Ivy asked and pointed to the cuts and bruises on Barbara's face.

"Yes. They roughed me up a bit during captivity. The only person who didn't was the Knight. Despite his part in my kidnapping, he was the only one who didn't harm me. In fact, he even warned Scarecrow and his men to leave me be when he found out what they were doing and they did. I don't know why he wasn't aggressive with me as he was with Batman and my dad, but he treated me humanely than everyone else."

"I'm glad to see you're alive and well, Miss Gordon." said Ivy.

"Please, call me 'Barbara'." she said,

"If you insist." said Ivy.

"I never thought that you, of all people, would save Gotham, the city you hated before as I've been informed." Barbara said.

"It was extremely painful and exhausting, I admit, but it was worth it. Sorry about your father being taken." Ivy replied.

"Don't remind me. I'm already terrified over what Scarecrow will do to him. Like with me, he'll do who knows what to him." Barbara said, frowning over the thought of her father's fate at the hands of Scarecrow.

"Crane obviously will use your father as leverage against you and Batman." Ivy said.

"Knowing him, he will." Barbara replied.

"As long as he has Gordon, Crane can manipulate me, Barbara or the entire police force." Batman said.

"He won't win. I assured him that during my captivity." Barbara said.

"He won't Barbara. I'll make sure of it." said Batman.

Looking at Ivy, who was staring at her former chamber that now housed Kirk Langstrum, Barbara leaned in for Batman to hear.

"You sure she's reformed?" she asked.

"No reports of hostility or escape attempts from her have been reported since her return. She expressed deep remorse over her past crimes and is currently friendly with me since I'm the one who always visits her to check on her health. Plus, she allowed me to use one of her plant-based weapons on the Arkham Knight. Ivy's been a different person since surviving the cloudburst." he answered.

 _"Yes, and she'll probably stay that way as long as you're with her Bruce, otherwise she might go bonkers and start 'World War P' on Gotham and the world! The 'P' stands for 'Plant' by the way and not what you release when you've had too many drinks, He-ho!"_ said the Joker vision to Batman.

With Ivy still distracted by Langstrum's presence in the chamber, Barbara turned to the computer and began typing on the keyboard.

"Okay, let's see. First establish comms with the Clock Tower computer. They really should upgrade these machines." said Barbara.

Her computer took a second to work and it gave Barbara her results.

"Okay, we're in." she said.

"Should I leave you two be? I don't wish to intrude on whatever you're doing." Ivy asked.

"No, you can stay. I don't mind your presence." Barbara said.

"Neither do I." said Batman.

Ivy remained where she was and watched as they worked.

The three were looking at a live feed of a few armed men attacking a machine room that only Batman and Barbara recognized.

"Dammit! Scarecrow's men are already in there." said Barbara.

"They're trying to take out the server room. Copy the data off the mainframe." said Batman.

Barbara tried, but she failed.

"I can't. The militia are locking down our access."

A moment later, the computer screen changed to static.

"We've lost the connection. We need that data. It's the only way to find my dad." she said.

"I'll handle it." Batman said while placing a hand on her shoulder for comfort.

"You can't go in there! They'll be expecting you." Barbara protested.

"I'm counting on it." Batman said.

"Want me to go with you?" Ivy asked.

"No. Remain here with Barbara." he said.

"Alright. Good luck." Ivy said and Batman walked away, leaving the former villain and former superheroine together.

"Now what?" Ivy asked.

"You can still remain here with me. I don't mind." Barbara said. Another image of a possessed Robin by Ivy's power played in her head, but Barbara put it aside. Ivy was unaware of Barbara's relationship with the man who worked alongside Batman.

Barbara typed away on her computer and monitored Batman's movements outside the station via a camera in his suit.

"So you . . . work for Batman?" Ivy asked her.

"Huh? Oh, yes. I've been working for him ever since I first met him during the Christmas Eve incident seven years ago. I was a teenager at the time and my father didn't outright trust Batman then due to his and the GCPD's 'anti-vigilante' views, believing that only the police should handle everything. I was rather annoyed by my dad's behavior toward Batman as he viewed him as a lawbreaker and public menace amongst society and refused the truth that the justice system was fractured at the time, which I told him many times, until he changed his mind about him during the fiasco with Victor Fries." Barbara explained.

Ivy allowed Barbara to resume her work and leave her along for a while. not wanting to interrupt her task.

One cop was heard saying to another that Scarecrow selected this day, Halloween of all days, to launch his assault on Gotham. A terrifying event held on a terrifying day and assumed Scarecrow may have a wicked sense of humor to have the attack take place on one of America's most famous, and controversial, holidays.

Another piece of irony was that Gotham was attacked like this on two different holidays: Halloween night and Christmas Eve seven years ago.

Batman later returned from his tasks and walked over to Barbara and Ivy who remained where he last saw them.

 _"Aw, Babs and Ivy appear to have become best buddies, wouldn't you say Bats? Plus, I think you and Barbara would have made a fine, yet odd couple. Remember that night when you and her made out back when she was Batgirl? I always thought you and her were 'just friends', but no, you and her HAD to give in to your urges! A man dressed as a bat and a girl dressed as a bat, makes total sense for a love scene to happen. Love on the battlefield, I believe the expression goes. I'm certain that Gordon will MURDER you if he ever finds out that you sucked face and had 'super-bat sex' with his one and only daughter and that you influenced her to dress like you! Even worse, Robin, by which I mean the current Robin you locked away with Harley and not the Night-kid or the one trying to kill you, would most likely pummel the crap outta you if he knew you kissed his girl! I'd tell them both myself if I were still among the living and if I knew about these things earlier. Never mess with a papa wolf or he'll bite the hell outta you!"_ Joker's vision said and Batman, like always, ignored his jabbering.

"Great, you're here." Barbara said upon seeing him and turned to her computer.

"Scarecrow's chopper flew out towards the bay before heading north. I tried narrowing it down further, but the data's corrupted. They did more damage than I thought." said Barbara.

Before anyone could say anything, the building suddenly shook as if an earthquake was happening.

"What the hell was that?" Barbara asked.

"Trouble." Batman said. He knew what the cause of the problem was.

Or _who_.

Just then, Barbara's computer screen, as well as every screen in the building, changed and revealed the mastermind behind the sudden attack.

Scarecrow.

With the Arkham Knight missing in action, that meant somebody else had to run his militia soldiers in his place and Scarecrow, despite not being the military type, fit the bill for that job.

Ivy glared daggers at the video image of the man who tried to kill her twice and for rendering her unconscious at the meeting.

"Gallant police force of Gotham. I have a message for you: You are not safe. You are not protected. Batman will not save you. This is the beginning of the end for you, Dark Knight." he said menacingly.

"Like hell it is." Barbara said and pressed a button to end his video and the computer screen was back to normal as were all the other computers in the station.

"Thank you." Ivy uttered, annoyed by Crane's message.

"The Batcomputer's back online, Batman. I'll do what I can." said Barbara.

Batman nodded, turned around and started to walk away to deal with the new problem at hand.

"I'll watch over her again, Batman. Go stop Scarecrow's militia." Ivy said.

"Keep her safe." he told her and ran out of the lobby and was gone again.

Inside, Ivy grew nervous. If the attacking militia breached the police station, not only would they kill everyone and free the inmates, they would also, most likely, have her killed too for her rejection of the villain alliance the instant they saw her. She didn't want Scarecrow knowing of her survival just yet. She wondered if he knew by now and it being the reason the station was under attack.

The building shook again, causing the officers and civilians to become filled with high worry while cheering could be heard from the villains the faint cheering noises from the other detainees in the cell block. The prisoners were happy and supportive of the attack because, to them, it meant that the militia was their ticket to freedom.

Ivy wished another giant tree was near the police station so she could use it to fight off the militia like she did at the graveyard during the cloudburst incident.

Despite not being outside to help Batman fight off the militia, Ivy was determined to help out the instant he summoned her.

She heard the officers planning their defenses and the villains bragging about being freed from their imprisonment.

""I hope Batman stops them before they tear this place apart." said Ivy.

"He's Batman. He always wins." said Barbara.

* * *

 **FINALLY I'M FINISHED! I am so sorry this took long. I was busy with my new Injustice 2 fics in my collection. I'm obsessed by the Injustice 2 hype and I was focused on those for weeks. That, and the fact that a sister of mine just had her first baby, making me an uncle, and I traveled to her homestate to see my newborn relative and I was unable to access my account for a while until I returned home.**

 **Ivy's finally healed by her Leech Seed which Batman used on the Knight. But despite being healthy again, she's still remaining in the GCPD because I'm saving her for a couple of important roles later on.**

 **As I've stated in the last chapter, what happened with Penguin before, the itching part, was loosely inspired by what happened with one of my own uncles long before I was alive. From what I was told, when my uncle was a kid, he had chicken pox and, while some may brave out this events, he was one of those who went insane from the symptoms and it was a living hell for him. I asked him once when I was in my mid teens and he said "Don't ask. It was torture." After imagining what that must have felt like, I wrote it here while putting myself in Penguin's shoes if I went through what Ivy did to him. I also had my own experience with chicken pox when I was younger, but I don't remember any of it and, frankly, I'm glad I don't because I was told that I was three years of age when I had it and that I too didn't take it very well.**

 **As I said earlier, I retyped this chapter because of a spoiler I wrote that wasn't meant to be read until later and I removed it. You can guess what it is for those who already read the old chapter. This is the new one. I kept the old chapter in order to recycle its content and I even added custom Joker dialogue from Batman's visions of what I think he'd probably say about Batman's partnership with Poison Ivy.**

 **I even added a "Killing Joker" nod here. I haven't read the book, but I have seen the movie and I responded with a loud "HOLY CRAP!" on a certain scene that I don't wish to reveal to avoid spoilers for anyone who hasn't seen it yet.**

 **PS: to the person who requested that I keep this fic in 3rd person view instead of 1st person, I'll keep it this way. I too refer it told in 3rd person. Plus, even if I wanted it to be from Ivy's POV, I'd have to restart ALL OVER again and I really don't wanna do that. Once was enough. Twice? Three times? No friggin' way.**

 **Here ya go and hope for more in the coming weeks. I've got other tales to write and post until then.**


	6. Rematch

**Anyone wonder how Batman used Ivy's Leech Seed against the Arkham Knight as he told Ivy in the last chapter?**

 **Here's a retelling of the battle with minor differences that you all know of.**

 **PS: to the person who told me of all the comics that spoke of a relationship between Batman and Poison Ivy, I read a few online and, other than the "New 52" series, I'm currently reading the "Gotham Knights" story. That one's gonna take a while to finish and I did read the "Cast Shadows" story.**

* * *

Batman entered the abandoned complex which he saw was now a base of operations for the Arkham Knight. He saw Jim Gordon tied to a chair and surrounded by a few of the Knight's loyal men. He had been following them ever since Gordon's capture.

The hero made fast work of the first two guards of his choice without detection at first until he had to reveal himself at some point and an all-out brawl began and when it was over, he and Gordon remained.

However. Batman did not let his guard down for this task was too easy for him.

Because of the nature of the situation and how easy it was for him to pummel the guards, he knew this was a trap. Jim was merely the bait and Batman, despite knowing the situation previously before coming here, took it like an ant or a cockroach taking an open bait trap on somebody's kitchen floor.

Aside from the guards, they were not alone here and his realization was proven correct when a familiar, computerized voice spoke up.

"Turn around."

Batman turned around and saw him, the Arkham Knight. He was armed with a pistol and he stared at Batman while aiming his gun at him. He stared at the one person besides Scarecrow he's been chasing after all night.

"Who are you?" he asked the mystery soldier. This invasion had to stop and Batman was determined to make that happen right here and the next, important step in doing that was learning the identity of the invasion's co-orchestrator working alongside Scarecrow and standing before him.

"You really have no idea . . . do you, Bruce?" asked the Knight.

Batman was stunned to hear his name said by this new opponent and before he could ask how he knew, the Knight opened his helmet faceplate and revealed his face to the Dark Knight at long last.

The Arkham Knight was somebody he knew long ago.

Someone he thought to be deceased.

The mysterious person terrorizing Gotham City was Jason Todd. A man who was once the second Robin of Bruce Wayne's clan of crime-fighters.

"Jason?! But . . . you're dead.'" Batman said in complete shock at the revelation of the person responsible for invading Gotham with his own militia and alongside the city's supervillains.

At this moment, the hallucination of Joker appeared and spoke to Batman in a teasing manner.

 _"Let's not fall out here, Bats. I might have told you a teeny tiny little lie. But c'mon, look at the boy. You did good. We did good. You should be proud."_

Jason circle-strifed around Batman, aiming his pistol at him with a cold look on his now-unmasked face.

The "J" mark, the same mark Poison Ivy told him of earlier from her interrogation of the GCPD inmates, was present on his face along with a scar near his eye.

"What's the matter? Lost for words? I expected more. I'm hurt." Jason said mockingly, relishing in the shock his former mentor was experiencing from seeing his supposedly-dead former partner alive and angry.

"Joker sent me the film. I saw him kill you." Batman said in disbelief.

"Don't you dare lie to me! How long did you wait before replacing me? A month? A week? I trusted you . . . and you just left me to die!" he said in a fit of rage.

"That's not what happened." Batman said in defense of himself.

"You always told me Bruce . . . focus on what I want to achieve . . . and it'll happen. Well, you want to know what I want now, huh? I. Want. You. **DEAD**!" he said while aiming his gun under the chin of the Dark Knight.

Batman retaliated by slapping the gun away, headbutting Jason and grappling away, keeping out of Jason's sight.

Jason tried to find him, but was unable to.

"You can't hide from me!" I will hunt you down!" Jason yelled as he changed his twin handguns into a long rifle, discarded the now-damaged faceplate and slid on a second one and grappled away as well to the top of one of the eagle statue overlooking the empty complex.

It came down to this. The master versus the apprentice. Batman had to be extra careful now because, unlike his previous opponents, Jason had the same combat capabilities as him. After all, Jason was taught by the Dark Knight himself on fighting and stealth. It would be like a mirror match.

Jim Gordon was safe for the moment, but if Batman failed to stop Jason, the police captain would die by his hand.

 _Jason's taken a sniping position. I need to get close, take him by surprise._ Batman thought to himself as he crouched behind an escalator for cover.

He took out Ivy's Leech Seed from his pouch and stared at it. He remembered what she told him about the seed's purpose and felt that Jason would be the one he'd use it on. But he wanted to try reasoning with Jason first, to see if he can get through to him and if that didn't snap him out of his rage, then the seed would be used as a last resort.

He put the seed back into his pouch, quietly grappled to another eagle statue that was covered by shadow, an excellent spot where Jason could not see him, and looked at his former friend and thought of a way to get close to him.

Jason was scanning the ground below him with his high-tech rifle, trying to find Batman.

Batman wanted to swing to another statue, but he decided against it because Jason would spot him.

Eyeing a ventilation shaft on a corner out of Jason's field of vision, Batman swung there instead, slid down its chute and was underground below.

"How long before you stopped searching for me? How long before you gave up?" Jason questioned above.

When the coast was clear, Batman exited the shaft and saw another one, but one that led into a wall instead. He approached it, carefully ripped open the hatch, sit it aside without noise and crouch-walked inside.

"It was all about you, what Joker did! He ruined me to spite you!" Jason yelled.

Batman ignored him and concentrated on his plan.

He grabbed onto the ledge of a spot that stood below Jason, the same floor they both stood on a minute ago. When Jason wasn't looking, Batman climbed up back and quietly walked over to Jason's spot. He was literally under him now.

"You're no hero! No savior! You failed me and now you're gonna fail Gotham the same way!" Jason said.

 _He thinks I abandoned him after suffering unbearable torture at the hands of the Joker._ Batman thought.

Taking a deep breath to shake out any nervousness, Batman grappled himself up on the eagle statue and was now standing in front of Jason. He reached for Jason's rifle before the latter could shoot and the two tried to outmuscle each other. The risk of falling was high, but neither combatant cared.

"Jason, I can help you!" Batman pleaded while keeping Jason's gun out of shooting range.

"There's no helping me!" Jason said and fired a shot from his rifle, startling Batman as he grabbed the side of his head to clear out the disorientation the shot gave him which allowed Jason to fall away and escape via a smoke bomb.

When Batman was clear, he didn't see Jason anywhere until the large, metal door with his symbol opened up and he saw Jason perched on another eagle statue.

"You're not the only one with sidekicks!" Jason taunted.

"Go get 'em, Batman!" Gordon cheered.

It seemed that Jason was right about his sidekick comment earlier because accompanying him were six of his men and a drone. If it spotted Batman, it'll shoot at him.

 _Jason will easily pick me off from there._ Batman thought and switched to his Remote Hacking Device and aimed it at Jason's rifle in hopes of disabling it. Unfortunately, nothing happened. Jason's rifle was immune to Batman's device. He really had planned ahead.

With that out of the question, Batman targeted the drone instead and succeeded in disabling its sensors. The drone was blind, but only for thirty seconds. When time was up, the drone's sensors would be active again. At least it was still vulnerable to his hacker.

"Alright, work together! Don't let the bastard get us!" yelled one of the militia members.

Batman activate his cowl's vision mode and looked around for any openings that would let him reach Jason.

The militia soldier's condition read: "NERVOUS".

"I've got a signal! Surveillance traces everywhere! Trying to locate origin!" said one soldier. That person had a device that allowed him to trace Batman's signal via his cowl. Batman had faced these kind of people earlier tonight.

 _Not again._ Batman thought. Lucky for him, he knew how to disable that tracking machine.

Batman found who was tracking him and deactivated his cowl to stop the signal.

"Dammit! Signal's gone!" the soldier complained and went about his business.

Batman used his hacker to blind the drone again as it was close to having its sensors back online.

After that, he saw that the guy holding that tracker device of his was starting to walk close to one of the statues.

Needing to sieze the moment, Batman swung over to where the man was and waited for him to get closer.

When the soldier was within his sights, Batman quickly swooped upside-down, yanked the man from the ground and crawled back up with the soldier in his tight grasp. None of the other soldiers heard this.

Batman tightened his grip on the soldier's throat to keep him from yelling for help and delivered a strong headbutt that knocked the man unconscious and the vigilante tied a cord around the man's ankles and let him fall off the statue and he was left dangling in mid-air.

Now that that problem was taken care of, Batman was free to use his cowl again without being traced.

"The grate's missing!" one said and gathered the others toward the spot Batman previously was at, thinking he was in there.

"Hope you like grenades! Fire in the hole!" yelled another soldier.

Batman zoomed in closer and saw a militia member dropping a grenade inside one of the side crates he had been in earlier.

The grenade exploded and left the vent shaft in smoke and ruins.

"Scarecrow has plans for you, Batman. But all I want is you dead." said Jason.

Batman swung over to another section of the area, this time one with windows below and under those windows was another militia man hunting for Batman.

One option was to drop in through the window the man was under and take him out. But that would also draw attention from the other militia guys.

Getting another idea, Batman swung to another wall vent shaft and went underground again. He made his way over to the unsuspecting soldier, using his cowl vision to lead the way.

When he was right below the soldier, Batman waited until the man walked across the grate and. without warning, he sprang from his hiding spot, wrapped his arms around the man's neck, with his hands covering his face, and starting to constrict his victim.

The soldier thrashed about, trying to break free from Batman's grasp while trying to scream for help, but was unable to with the Dark Knight's hand clamped around his face.

Several seconds later, the soldier went limp. He was unconscious and Batman slowly let the body drop without making noise and moved on.

"It's just a man out there! He can't hurt you!" Jason said to his men, frustrated of how his well-trained militia members were being taken down by a single man.

Batman approached another soldier whose back was turned to him. He was looking at a grate on the floor, thinking his target would be down there until he was proven wrong when he was struck in the back of his head and was rendered unconscious like the other guy.

Batman saw another soldier about to approach and he hid himself behind a crate box.

The soldier walked over and spotted his unconscious friend and started panicking. He was about to notify his comrades of his discovery until Batman suddenly grabbed him, and bashed his head against the crate, also knocking him out.

However, this caused noise and attracted the attention of the last two guards standing.

"What the hell was that?" asked one.

"Let's go check." said the other and both started to walk to where the sound was heard.

"Leave him! We have to look out for ourselves!"

"Show yourself, you bastard!" one of the last guards cried out.

Batman dealt with those two by bashing their heads together, knocking them out and leaving Jason by himself again.

"I can still hear him laughing! He's still in my head!" Jason replied.

 _Jason can easily spot me from up there. I need to use stealth to approach him from underneath._

Batman snuck under Jason's statue again like before, using the ground grates to sneak the vision fields of Jason and his drone which had regained its sensors now.

"It ends for you, Dark Knight! Right here!" said Jason.

Batman exited his grate, grappled himself to the ledge just below Jason's statue spot, used his grapple gun on the eagle's underside and swung up and confronted Jason again.

"Joker got to you! I know what it's like!" he said to Jason.

"Don't pretend to understand!" Jason said angrily and whipped out a flashbang/smoke grenade hybrid weapon and detonated it, releasing a stream of light and smoke and disorienting Batman.

When he came to, Jason was gone again and what was worse, the room was about to be flooded with a dangerous gas chemical.

Batman spotted a man-sized hole on one of the shutters, his only means of escape.

 _I need to escape through the hatch in the shutters before the gas is released._

He swung through the hatch and was back in the area where Gordon was, still tied down.

Another shutter opened up and Jason was seen on another eagle statue with another drone and more henchmen.

"I learned how to take a little pain, Batman! I learned from the best! But you can't hurt what you can't see!" Jason mocked as his men marched into the area.

The reason for his comment was because a few of his soldiers were wearing special uniforms that masked their signatures from Batman's vision mode, making them harder to spot.

"Not this time, Batman! Optic deflection armor. Your sensors won't work. You're lost without the cowl! Use your eyes . . . if you remember how." Jason said mockingly.

Batman used his vision on the men and was displeased to see that Jason was right. Their heat signatures did not show up, making him kinda blind. He was dependent on his vision mode during the night, this time he had to fight these guys without it and decided to play along.

However, he trained for times like this before, how to fight effectively without reliance on his technology, and now was the perfect time to put that training to good use.

"Nothing here. Move!" said the men.

Batman dealt with the militia in two minutes and it was back to Jason and his drone.

"Do you even know what Joker did to me? The games he used to play? This is mercy compared to what he put me through!" Jason said.

Although determined to stop Jason, Batman couldn't help but feel bad for him. Joker was the reason Jason was the way he was now, the clown molded him into the angry, gun-toting killer trying to kill his the Bat. The invasion, the planning, the crimes, the recruitment of the villains into helping him with killing Batman and springing them all over Gotham City, the kidnapping of Barbara and her father. Part of this was that dead clown's fault. He killed Jason Todd, replaced him with this "Arkham Knight" person.

"I was just a kid. You turned me into a soldier, sent me to war!" Jason said as Batman continued sneaking around undetected.

He got under the statue Jason was on and grappled his way up and confronted Jason again.

"Stand down, Robin!" he said, addressing Jason by his former title in hopes of snapping him out of his rage.

"Don't call me that! That's not who I am!" Jason replied and headbutted his former mentor. Batman flung Jason off the statue and he vanished in a third batch of smoke.

Like before, the room was sealed off save for another hatch.

"There's no escape! Not this time!" Jason said.

With no time to spare, Batman swung himself over to the hatch and returned to the main area of the base.

Another shutter opened, revealing Jason once again perched into the same sniping position as usual and, while there were no more militia troops this time, Jason was accompanied by not only another drone, but also two rotating machine gun turrets with red sensor lights on the ground.

These would make getting to Jason harder now.

"I'm not afraid of you, Bruce. You're not a legend to me." said Jason.

Batman disabled the drone first. But he couldn't do the same to the turrets.

 _The drone's sensors are temporarily disabled, but I can only hack one at a time, so the previous drone will be back online._

"Joker made me hate you! But you let him do it!" yelled Jason.

Batman snuck over to the turrets and ducked behind a few crate boxes, keeping him safe from Jason or the guns.

"I'm not your sidekick anymore. I grew up." Jason yelled.

The drone was above Batman, so using his hacker on the guns was not an option for now, so he resorted to the next best thing. He took out one of his smoke bombs and threw it at the guns.

The bombs exploded and quickly covered the guns with a large amount of smoke. This actually worked because one of the guns lights shone at where Batman was and it didn't fire a shot and passed by like nobody was there. The smoke completely hid him from the guns' sights as well as Jason's.

"You can't hide!" said Jason. He was unable to see his foe through the smoke.

 _Now's my chance, got to do this quick._

Batman approached one turret, pried its backside open with a batarang and disabled its firing mechanism. He repeated the same thing with the second gun and both were now destroyed.

The smoke was starting to clear up and Batman ducked underneath the eagle statue just in the nick of time as the drone he disabled earlier was back online.

With the obstacles out of the way, Batman proceeded to propel himself up to handle Jason Todd for what he hoped would be the final moment this time.

Jason aimed his rifle at Batman, but it was slapped away and he tried to punch him. Batman blocked the attack and delivered a right hook that made Jason twirl back from the blow. Before he could do anything else, Batman grabbed Jason, pushed him against the wall and ripped off his suit's chest armor plate.

"You're Robin, Jason. You're not what he made you!" Batman said, trying to reason with him again.

Jason shoved Batman away.

"Stop! Stop talking to me!" he said almost maniacally and proceeded to shove Batman off the statue.

However, seconds before falling off, Batman quickly took out Ivy's seed and forcefully pressed it against one of Jason's arms.

By the time they both landed on the ground, Batman quickly got up and backed away as he saw Jason being covered with living vines sprouting from the seed. They grew and wrapped all over him like a sea anemone latching onto its prey.

"What's the hell is this?!" Jason demanded as he struggled to free himself from the vines which were tightening their grip on him. They were stronger than him.

"It's a new weapon I obtained to use against you or Scarecrow. I figured I'd use it on you since you're more combat skilled and dangerous than Crane." said Batman.

"You piece of sh-"Jason barely said as the vines began to suck Jason's energy and he felt himself getting weaker with every passing second. Not even his fit physique was able to resist the vines' draining power.

Batman just watched, hoping that Ivy's seed would succeed in stopping his former friend's rampage. He did not wish to kill Jason with the seed, only incapacitate him. He also guessed that the seed was transferring all of Jason's energy into Ivy back at GCPD as she said it would upon attaching itself to someone. He'd made a mental note to go check on her after his ordeal with Jason was over.

Jason's visor was cracked from the fall and his face was visible. Along with that, his vision was getting dimmer every second as he felt himself grow weak and exhausted.

He saw his handgun a few inches away from his position and tried to reach for it, but he was unable to get it due to his weakened state. His knife was on his belt, but he couldn't reach it.

After a minute, the seed's vines completed their task and slithered themselves off of Jason and they flailed about and shriveled up until they all lay still on the ground. The vines were dead, dried up and useless now.

Jason was now unable to move. He was completely drained of any energy he previously had, but he was still conscious and barely breathing. He felt as if he had been through the most grueling, brutal ungodly workout of his life and he thought the training he endured with Batman or before the invasion was brutal enough.

"Why do I . . . feel so tired?" Jason asked in bewilderment.

"The seed drained every ounce of energy from you, rendering you exhausted and you will be that way for a while." Batman answered.

He approached the fallen Knight and removed all weapons and equipment from his person and Jason was unable to stop him.

"You . . . did this to me!" Jason spat out and he wasn't talking about his current condition. Even while drained, he still maintained his anger.

"I'm sorry." Batman said. He meant it. He was sorry for not being there for Jason when he was held captive by the Joker. Being with that freak had to have been a living hell.

"You left me to rot in that abandoned wing of Arkham for over a year . . . with **HIM**!" Jason said with a hint of quivering fear in his voice at the last part. The memories of his captivity flooded his mind. To Jason, no amount of mental therapy of any kind can wipe these horrifying memories out of his head and they would remain there until his death.

"It's not too late. We can fix this . . . together." Batman said calmly to the person who started the invasion of Gotham. Inside, he couldn't fully blame Jason for his behavior because of the horrid reason behind them. Despite all that has happened, Batman still believed that the good part of Jason Todd was still inside his damaged mind, laying dormant from being replaced with rage and the urge to kill.

After a few seconds of staring at the Dark Knight, not knowing what else to do next, he lowered his head in shame and guilt and just laid there limp.

Batman turned around and activated his wrist comm to contact someone.

Alfred appeared on the video hologram.

"Alfred, it's . . . I found Jason." said Batman.

"Excuse me, sir. I must have misheard you for a moment. I thought you said you'd found Master Todd." said Alfred.

"You heard right." Batman confirmed.

"My God, is he alright?" the butler asked.

Batman turned around, but was surprised that Jason was no longer there. He disappeared and despite having been weakened by Ivy's seed, he still managed to get away quickly as if he suddenly recharged himself.

"No. No, he's not." said Batman and he deactivated his video and stared at the spot.

This was going to be a lot for him to digest. He had just fought a man he thought he'd never see again, a man whom he had trained for combat, who was declared killed in action for a long time.

He then returned to Gordon's location and found the first mask Jason had on the entire night. It still malfunctioned and showed static from the headbutt Batman performed on its owner earlier.

 _"So, I guess that's the end of the Arkham Knight. He chose the name himself, y'know. Bless him. What better to drive a man crazy than in the madhouse? Oh, I miss that place, don't you? Who knows? Maybe we'll end up back there one day, eh? Nice work on defeating him with the use of your girlfriend's living seed, by the way. I bet Ivy's fully healed by now because of that. Perhaps she'll kill everyone back at GCPD now that she's healthy again and doesn't need you to babysit her anymore. I gotta say Bats, for a playboy billionaire, you sure have a terrible taste in women. They're either a member of a centuries-old underground assassins creed whose daddy lives via a magic resurrecting pool, or used to considering what you did to his machine, a jewel thief who dress up like a house pet and uses a whip to swung around and fight enemies with like that famous archaeologist guy in those classic films from the 1980's of which I was a huge fan of in my youth days, a former sidekick vigilante-turned-computer-specialist who's literally half-dead from the waist down and can't tell when she's hungry or has to take a crap, a red-head lady who also dresses up as a lesbian version of you and is married to another chick, not that I have anything against homosexuals despite my own criminal lifestyle, or a plant hybrid scientist who's currently in love with the man who dresses up as a scary flying animal and throws criminals, herself included, in jail all the time."_ said the Joker hallucination who suddenly appeared.

"Get me out of here, Batman." said Gordon.

His voice snapped Batman out of his hallucination and he went to untie Gordon.

"We need to get up to the roof. Scarecrow's there." he said.

"What happened?" Batman asked.

"I went after Crane. Got caught." Gordon said as he picked up his badge and his revolver from a table that both were laying on a table.

Now that Jason was dealt with and Gordon was saved, the two men were now determined to find and rescue Barbara.

Because Jason said his name aloud in front of the police commissioner, Gordon now knew who Gotham's protector was under the mask.

And yet he still stood by him and not because his daughter was in danger.

"Jim . . . I'm sorry about Barbara." Batman began to say until Gordon stopped him.

"Don't. Let's just get this over with." he said dismissively.

Gordon opened a gate that led to the building's elevator and it began to open.

"I should have stopped him-" Batman started to say until the door opened fully and they were greeted by a bunch of militia guys.

"Jim, look out!" said Batman.

Gordon reacted slowly and was punched out by one of them, leaving Batman to deal with them.

After the militia members were all knocked out, Gordon regained consciousness.

"You okay, Jim?" asked Batman.

"I've been worse." said Gordon.

He brushed himself off and walked inside the elevator.

Batman pushed a big red button and it began to take them up.

Neither man said anything for a few seconds. A lot of thoughts raced all throughout their minds. But the common one they shared was of Barbara Gordon.

"Jim, I just want to say, working with Barbara, it was an honor." said Batman, trying to ease his mental pain of losing his daughter.

"Don't . . ." said Gordon. He felt as if the Dark Knight was saying that Barbara was either dead or she was going to be tonight. Either way, Gordon refused to back down.

"Even if you knew what she was doing, you couldn't have stopped her." said Batman.

Gordon had to admit that he was right about that. Barbara was fiercely determined to accomplish something once her mind was made up. There was no talking her out of whatever she planned on doing no matter what. He tried a few times in the past, but he always lost. Even paralysis did not stop her.

"Stubborn like her old man." said Gordon. He and her were the same when it came to determination.

"Brave." Batman added.

"You know, you see a lot in this job. A lot of pain. A lot of suffering. But I'll never forget taking a witness statement from an 8-year-old boy who'd just seen his parents gunned down." said Gordon, remembering the night Bruce's parents died.

"You were kind, Jim." said Batman, also remembering. Jim acted polite and compassionate to him as a child, as did a few cops while others kept bragging of how his mass wealth would help him survive after losing his parents.

"I was thinking, I may never get the chance to tell you this . . . to say sorry." Gordon said. It was about his anger toward Batman and punching him earlier after learning of his daughter's abduction by Crane and the Knight. It clouded his judgement completely and, at the time, he felt that Batman was to blame for Barbara's capture because she worked for him on his vigilante career and he saw him as a bad influence on her. He now regretted his behavior.

"You don't need to." Batman told him. He understood Gordon's rage and couldn't blame him for it. He was just angry of what transpired. A natural reaction to any parent or other relative who deeply cared for the safety of another very close to them.

"We're the same, Bruce. We'd do anything for our family." said Gordon.

The elevator stopped when it reached the rooftop of the site.

"C'mon." Gordon said he and Batman stepped out when the gate opened.

Standing at the edge of the construction site was Scarecrow. It appeared he was outmatched.

"On your knees, Crane. Now." Batman demanded as Gordon aimed his gun at the mad scientist.

Scarecrow didn't flinch one bit. He looked calm. Judging from his behavior, this was obviously a trap.

"So you did it. I must admit, I had my doubts that you could make this happen." he said.

"I'm not asking again." Batman warned.

Scarecrow turned around to look at Batman.

"And I'm not talking to you. It is time." he said.

This confused Batman.

"Time for what?" he asked.

Seconds later, and unsuspectingly to Batman, Gordon suddenly pointed his revolver at the hero.

"Jim?" he asked, deeply confused to this sudden act of betrayal.

Despite what he was doing, Gordon had a look of regret on his aging face.

"I'm sorry. It was the only way." he said with remorse.

Batman then realized that Gordon's actions were not of his own free will and there was only one reason why he'd do something like this.

 _Crane's using Barbara as leverage against Jim. He'll do anything to keep his daughter alive, even this._ He thought.

"Get me my daughter." Gordon said to Crane, confirming Batman's guess.

Scarecrow waved his hand to someone out of either man;s view and in a second, more of the Knight's soldiers appeared with Barbara Gordon with them. She had scratches and bruises on her face, hands and legs. Her hands were tied to the armrests of her wheelchair while one of the men pushed her. Her legs were not bound for a very obvious reason.

"Dad!" Barbara exclaimed.

"Barbara! Are you alright? Did he hurt you?" Gordon asked frantically at seeing his daughter's physical condition. While scared on the outside, inside, Gordon was furious at Scarecrow for making his daughter appear like that.

Batman was relieved to see her still alive. This meant that what he saw earlier at the same place where Poison Ivy was held captive in hours ago was false. Another one of Scarecrow's hallucinations to frighten him once more like with what happened at Arkham Asylum.

And he fell for it.

The entire second half of tonight, he was mourning for nothing because the victim was alive the whole time.

"What are you doing?!" Barbara asked her father upon seeing him aiming his revolver at Batman.

Gordon felt really bad for making Barbara horrified of him threatening Batman with his weapon. But he had no choice at the moment. Crane ordered him to do it.

"Call in the transport. We're leaving." Scarecrow ordered.

"Yes sir." said a militia member and ran off to obey his order while the others held Batman and Gordon at gunpoint.

"It is time for the people of Gotham to see their savior for who he truly is. A man. Just a man, deprived of hope. Betrayed by his friends. Crippled by fear." Scarecrow said while staying very close to Barbara. He was acting in the manner of a sex pervert.

"Let her go." Gordon said.

"You both still have a part to play." Scarecrow told him.

"We had a deal." Gordon said and aimed his gun at Scarecrow who was standing behind Barbara, holding her in place to force Gordon to back off.

Despite being outmanned and outgunned, Gordon was willing to go down fighting for his daughter.

Scarecrow just stared and smiled evilly even though it was hard to tell with that hideous face of his.

"Once I understood your greatest fear, controlling you was simple. You blame yourself for her condition." Scarecrow said, taunting Gordon and deep down, the commissioner knew he was right. He had always blamed himself for not protecting Barbara on the night Joker shot her and paralyzed her for life.

He always said things like, "It's my fault. I wasn't there to stop him! I did this!"

Barbara and friends would always tell him he was not at fault for Barbara's paralysis and he refused to listen almost all the time until one day, Barbara had managed to succeed in snapping him out of his stupor. He later told her that she was right and that he needed to move on as she did.

However, despite being convinced that Barbara's current condition was Joker's own doing and not Gordon's himself, he still worried every day that someone or something would attack her now that she was more vulnerable to the world. He would work twice as hard in his department in order to keep all criminals away from his only living relative because she was all he had left and her living status is what kept him sane in this bleak, dark world. If she died, he'd have nothing to live for. and, as of a few hours ago, his fears came true and here he was now, pleading for Scarecrow to release Barbara in exchange for shooting at the city's Dark Knight.

If this were the Christmas incident seven years ago, he'd gladly put a bullet in Batman as he tried to capture him that night, thinking he was just another outlaw in a mask and cape. But now, it frightened him, being forced to threaten the one man he used to chase in the early years and now called "friend" instead of "suspect" or "criminal" for the sake of his child.

Scarecrow just stared at him in amusement, knowing that he was terrifying the city police commissioner with his one weakness.

"You need to protect her, but buried deep down is the inevitability that you will one day fail . . ."

He then placed a hand on Barbara's face. She jerked her head away in protest, but the fear-obsessed criminal resumed his unwanted touching across her face until he forced her to look at him.

". . . and that fear makes you mine." Scarecrow finished.

Gordon kept aiming at Scarecrow, not caring his men were watching him or not.

"Think very carefully about your best move, Commissioner. Her life depends on it." Scarecrow said threateningly as he stared at Barbara again.

With no other choice, Gordon re-aimed his gun at Batman and fired off a shot, hitting Batman who got knocked back by the force of the bullet's range of fire and was sent flying over the railing.

"Dad! No!" Barbara cried out.

Gordon lowered his gun and stared at the spot where he shot Batman, regretting it, but also feeling confident because of how he shot the Dark Knight. Good thing Crane didn't know.

Instantly, the militia troops gathered around him, seizing the GCPD leader.

Scarecrow approached the now-helpless man.

"Did you think I wanted him dead? Did you think that would save your daughter?" he asked and looked back at Barbara again and slowly walked over to her.

"Do you know what happens when a man refuses to be controlled by his fears?" he asked as he placed his hands on the front of her wheelchair and pushed her toward the building's edge.

"He must face them." said the mad scientist.

This horrified Gordon as he knew what was about to happen.

"No! Take me! Please! It's not her you want! Take me!" He pleaded. He was offering to let himself be killed in his daughter's place if it meant saving her. Only a true parent would do such a thing.

Scarecrow, although relishing in Gordon's misery, ignored him and continued pushing Barbara to the edge.

Barbara was wishing her legs still worked so she can kick him. He was wide open for such an attack, but she could not.

Scarecrow then tipped Barbara's chair over and held her in place. Despite the situation, Barbara refused to yield to her fear in front of this immoral man.

"You don't scare me." she said defiantly. It was a half-truth. Inside, she _was_ scared, but more of what he was planning on doing in the next few seconds rather than Crane himself.

If only she had her grapple gun with her from her Batgirl days . . .

Scarecrow leaned closer to Barbara as if he was going to kiss her, and she inched her face away from his.

"Shh . . . It's okay to be afraid." he said creepily and let go of her chair.

Her chair tipped over more and Barbara let out a shriek as she fell off the building.

As Barbara fell to the earth below, she was suddenly caught by Batman! He had survived the gunshot her father gave him. She didn't know how he did and she didn't care for now. All she cared about was him saving her from the harrowing fall and landing safely somewhere and Batman did just that as he glided himself down to the ground while holding onto Barbara tightly until they were both safe and sound as Batman let himself take the painful landing.

As soon as they landed, Batman perched Barbara against a stone slab so she can catch her breath after going through that nasty fall.

"Are you hurt?" he asked her.

Barbara looked at herself and found no injuries on herself aside from the cuts and bruises that were already there.

"I thought Dad killed you." she exclaimed from the sight of him being alive.

Batman reached a hand to his chest plate and took out the bullet he was shot with earlier.

"He knew what he was doing." he said.

Gordon knew which part of Batman's armor was resistant to bullets and fired there to spare him than actually killing him.

Before Barbara could say anything else about that, she and him both looked up at the sky and saw a military helicopter flying away from where they both were mere seconds ago.

"Why are they taking him?" Barbara asked.

Like Barbara, Batman was going to say something until a blast interrupted him. To the Dark Knight, that blast was familiar because it came from another tank and it, accompanied by many more, was heading their way and each one was firing its cannon at them.

He and Barbara were being assaulted by 24 tanks total.

Batman covered Barbara with his form as the tanks kept firing their cannons and machine guns at the Dark Knight and the former Batgirl.

"Where's the Batmobile?!" Barbara asked as she accepted Batman's cover.

"Destroyed." said Batman.

"What?!" Barbara questioned.

"Don't worry. Lucius made a spare." he replied.

As they were pinned down by the tanks, a Bat jet suddenly appeared, dropped another Batmobile into the streets and flew away.

"Sir, the car has the full complement of upgrades, including an improved weapons generator." said Alfred on his comm link."

Batman then activated his wrist comm and soon, the Batmobile, despite not having a driver in its cockpit, sprang to life and engaged the enemy tanks until they were all destroyed, leaving Batman and Barbara as the only ones left.

He commanded the Batmobile to come closer to their spot and when it did, he scooped Barbara up bridal-style and carried her to his new vehicle.

"Scarecrow's going to kill him, isn't he?" she asked as she was being carried.

"Not while he can use him to get to me." Batman said. As long as Scarecrow had

While walking to the Batmobile, he saw Joker's ghost again who was standing right beside the vehicle.

"Oh, how chivalrous. Remember the time you carried me like that? I don't because I was dead."

Batman made it and the back door opened automatically. He placed Barbara inside one of the seats and lowered the safety hatch over her.

"I'll get you set up at the precinct. We'll find your father." he said.

Barbara nodded and the seat retracted itself inside the car and closed its door, sealing Barbara inside.

With Barbara back, Batman hopped over to the Batmobile's driver seat and took off into the streets.

The next objective was taking Barbara to GCPD. Returning to the clock tower was not an option anymore as the militia forces now knew of its true meaning. It was no longer safe.

While driving, Batman felt he had to say something to her.

"Barbara. Scarecrow manipulated me. I watched you die." he replied.

"He gassed you, Bruce. You don't need to worry about us or feel responsible. We're fighting with you, not for you. Ok?" Barbara replied.

"It's good to have you back." he said and resumed driving.

While doing that, he sent out a message to GCPD.

"Cash, I've found Barbara. I'm bringing her to the lockup."

"She's alive?! Thank God! What about Gordon?"

"He was captured by Scarecrow."

"You've gotta be kidding me!"

"We'll get him back, Cash."

He hung up and, as he drove, he prepared to tell Barbara something important.

"Barbara, there's something else you need to know before we head to the station." he said.

"What is it?" she asked.

"You recall Crane's gas attack from earlier? The one that blanketed all of Gotham?"

"Yes. You stopped it." she said.

"Actually, I didn't stop it by myself. I had some big help." he said.

"Who helped you? Tim? Dick? Alfred?" she asked.

"Poison Ivy." he stated.

Barbara was stunned to hear that name.

"Poison Ivy?! She _helped_ you?" she asked in surprise.

"Yes."

"Why? How? I thought she aligned herself with Scarecrow and the others with this whole invasion."

"Not quite. Ivy refused to involve herself with them and she was detained by Crane until I rescued her and brought her to the police station. She later joined me in saving Gotham from his gas cloud and she succeeded, but at the cost of serious health peril afterward."

"My god, is she alright?" she asked.

"At first, no. The gas infected her badly after absorbing all of it into her system and it almost killed her. But she survived barely and has been resting at GCPD most of the time ever since I took her back to recover." he replied.

"Does she still express her usual hatred of you and for people?"

"Not anymore. Ivy's been friendly around me ever since surviving the burst. She's abandoned her hostile behavior and has agreed to keep helping me out with stopping the invasion. She even gave me a weapon that helped me defeat the Arkham Knight."

"The Arkham Knight? That reminds me, the Knight's true name is . . ."

"Jason Todd, I know. He revealed his face to me prior to our battle."

"He did? What happened between you and him?"

"We fought. I won."

"You said Ivy gave you a weapon that brought him down. What kind of weapon was it?"

"A seed she created months after Arkham City and before tonight. She said it was meant to drain a victim's energy, transfer it to her and heal her completely and I'm guessing that it worked and Ivy is healthy again by now."

"Did you give her a lie-detector test to see if she was lying of her change?"

"I did. She was truthful about her current personality. She's very remorseful of everything she's done before and no longer wishes to dominate humanity while slowly bring her own out."

"So Scarecrow poisoning the entire city and her almost dying from his cloud toxin are what brought out Ivy's long-buried inner humanity?" she asked.

"It appears so." he said.

Barbara didn't think that Poison Ivy could ever change. She always seemed determined to accomplish her eco-terror mission of plant domination and would not stop until she either succeeded or died trying. Poison Ivy, a meta woman who did a lot of damage to society and at Arkham Asylum a couple of years back, was now working for the man who always foiled her plans and put her behind bars and it took her a near-death experience to finally see the light and retire from crime.

"Did Jason tell you why he did what he did during your captivity?" he asked her, snapping her out of her train of thought of Ivy.

"Kinda. Despite his cold nature, he was actually compassionate around me. The militia men roughed me up because I was the daughter of the city's police chief and saw me as a tool of revenge against my father and the Gotham police. But Jason refused to treat me that way and he even warned them to back off and threatened anyone who touched me with serious and the torture stopped. He asked me how I was doing and of Alfred. I tried to convince him to abandon his mission and rejoin us, telling him that we missed him every day. But, even though he admitted to missing us too, he refused to give in."

"I see." he said.

"You really don't mind having Poison Ivy in the police station with you and the other prisoners?" Barbara asked.

"Ivy's no prisoner this time. She's a different person now and really wants to redeem herself and I'm willing to allow her to prove it." he replied.

"You sure she won't harm me if she sees me?" she asked.

"I'm certain." he said.

"Okay, I'll take your word for it."

They made it to GCPD and drove inside the vehicle entrance. Batman got out first and opened the back hatch to get Barbara. He picked her up and walked toward the door.

"Where's Tim? Is he okay?" she panicked.

"I left him at the movie studios. He's fine." said Batman as he kept walking. He didn't want to disturb her with the true reason Robin was at the studio. She'd be angry at Batman if she found out. She would eventually, but, to him, hopefully not yet until the invasion was over.

The officers who were outside were very stunned to see Barbara Gordon alive after being told she died. They were overwhelmed to see her.

One of them opened the door for them. Batman silently nodded in thanks and marched inside.

Ignoring any remarks the prisoners made at Barbara, Batman led her and himself all the way to the main hall entrance where he and Barbara were greeted by Cash.

"Barbara! It's great to see you!" he said happily after being told she was dead.

"Hello Aaron. It's been a while." Barbara said.

"Barbara's going to be helping out here." Batman replied and walked away with Barbara still in her arms.

"Whatever you say. She works for you now? Hell, what am I saying? We all do, right?" he said jokingly.

Batman placed Barbara onto a seat in front of a desktop computer. He turned it on, logged in and soon, it was brought to life.

"All yours, Barbara." Batman said.

"Thanks. I'm going to look up our equipment to see what the damages are." Barbara said.

"I'll go check on Ivy and be back." he said.

Barbara got to work on the computer while Batman went to visit Ivy again, wanting to see if her Leech Seed worked on restoring her back to health.

* * *

 **Sorry for taking so long. Now you all know how the battle between Batman and the Knight went and Barbara's reaction to learning of Poison Ivy's survival, new personality and presence at the station was like.**

 **The next chapter will return to Ivy's view and retell what I removed in the last chapter. Someone requested me to make this kind of chapter and so I did. I won't say who the person's name is out of anonymity reasons.**

 **PS: In one of my other fics, I made an R.I.P. list of celebs and victims who died in 2017 and before. Someone pointed out that I forgot to include Adam West among them, a.k.a. "Batman '66". So, I'm putting that here.**

 **R.I.P. Adam West . . . or should I say "Adam We"?**

 **"Nobody messes Adam We!"**

 **I admit I used to watch the old "Batman" show as a child. His version was more funny than serious. I even made a toast to West and everyone else with a bottle of alcohol-free beer. I don't drink regular beer in real life. He really loved his taffy. Get it?**

 **Here's to 2018 and what it beholds. And when I say that, I mean the good parts, not the bad.**

 **Another PS: I forgot to post this upcoming message months ago, so before the year ends, I need to get this part out of the way. May 22nd 2017 marked the 10th anniversary of me becoming a member/writer of . Before 2007, I was completely unaware about this site's existence until one day I found it by mistake. This website was around since the late 90's and I used to have a lot of fanfics in my head that I could not write down back then and my first fic was a Pokemon/Primal Rage story that I first published that year.**

 **It was also the year I graduated high school. Goooood tiiiiiimmmmes . . .**

 **Happy 10th anniversary me!**


	7. Back To The Front

**Now that you've seen how Batman beat the Knight (my version anyway), it's back to the battle for the GCPD headquarters.**

 **Early heads-up: some things and events may be mixed because I either forgot to write them in earlier or it made sense to place them in certain times. You'll see in this chapter.**

 **I liked the Cast Shadows story to whoever asked me if I read it. I can't believe I never read it all those years ago . . . I was too busy kicking ass in high school P.E. at the time of its publication. One person in one of my classes back then was obsessed with Poison Ivy and always mentioned wanting to write for DC Comics one day. I never saw that person again and I'm not even sure if that person's alive or dead today considering it's been 14 years since then.**

 **Free advice: NEVER drink anything, water, soda, whatever, before going to a movie theater. I did that recently and during a good part of my film, my bladder was so fuggin' full to bursting, I could barely focus on the movie. I tried to resist the urge to piss because I didn't wish to miss anything, but I couldn't fight it any longer and I made a mad dash to the little writer's room! Better to miss a piece of a performance rather than piss my pants or end up in the ER for kidney problems.** **Since then, I've made it my personal policy to always wait until AFTER viewing a movie in theaters. Much better.**

* * *

The GCPD was taking blow after blow from the cannons and machine gun turrets of enemy tanks outside. They would not stop until they brought the entire building down to the ground or were obliterated and Batman had already gone out to deal with them and the occupants inside were left to shelter themselves from the massive attack.

Barbara Gordon was busy working on her computer with Poison Ivy standing beside her. Ivy was keeping her promise to Batman that she would watch over Barbara during his absence and she acted as a bodyguard to her.

Barbara had locked down the main hall's elevator entrance completely in the event enemy forces desired to use it to enter the building and kill everyone from inside.

Suddenly, all lights and electronics inside the GCPD, including Barbara's computer, turned off. It was a blackout.

The instant that happened, most of the occupants began to panic and half of the station's officers were trying to calm them down and the other half were prepared for a firefight against any invaders who breached their way inside in the dark now that the station was vulnerable.

Because there was no power now, the only sources of light to use were flashlights and battery-powered electric lanterns which someone brought out and shared whatever there was to everyone else.

Barbara got an electric lantern one and turned it on. It was colored green, which she found kinda ironic for a certain reason.

"Does this place have any anti-breaching technology besides the one you're using?" Ivy asked Barbara.

"Some, but it's not designed to last forever and can be penetrated with heavy force or by someone with intellect similar to my own. Also, with the electricity disabled, that elevator is not operable, but it's also not protected either, meaning that, even without power, militia soldiers can still come in, assuming they find a way to use the elevator despite the outage." Barbara said as she tried to find a way of restarting her computer.

It was useless. She had no way of continuing her work online without the electricity.

Luckily for her, she still had the means to communicate with Batman via her earpiece and radio. The building's power failure was from a blackout, not an EMP, therefore, her said devices still worked. If only her computer were battery operated. She figured she should have gotten a laptop here instead.

"Good thing you can still talk to Batman with that thing." Ivy said about Barbara's radio.

"Yeah. I'm glad this outage is not from an EMP." said Barbara.

She suddenly got a call from Batman. Now was her chance to inform him of their new problem.

"Batman, the power's gone out in here. The schematics say there's a generator on the outside of the building. Go!" she said and got off.

"What do you think happened to the building's generator?" Ivy asked.

"Probably a slight malfunction. We need it to restore power to the building. Plus, besides my security code, Batman's car is inside the station's garage and the entrance is electronic and with the power disabled, it's trapped inside. He can't drive it out of here. But if he succeeds in reviving the power, he can turn the tide of the battle in our favor." said Barbara.

Another message from Scarecrow played.

 **"GCPD. THE HOME OF GOTHAM'S BRAVE MEN AND WOMEN. A BEACON OF HOPE IN A CITY OF CHAOS AND DESPAIR. WATCH AS I OBLITERATE IT AND THE LIVES OF ALL WHO COWER WITHIN ITS WALLS!"**

"If only the outage shut _that_ off." Barbara said. She was getting tired of hearing Scarecrow's voice throughout Gotham and frankly, so was Ivy.

 _I can't wait to get my toxic green hands on him . . ._ Ivy thought with inner anguish.

 _If my legs were still functioning, I'd beat Crane to oblivion!_ Barbara thought and remembered the time she brutally beat someone to the point where her opponent bled until Batman stopped her. That moment terrified her in later days, but at this time, she felt Scarecrow deserved one from her right about now for how he treated her.

Another message from Batman was in bound to Barbara who answered.

"Oracle, the generator's destroyed." he said.

"Dammit! Okay, there's a backup in the underground parking garage. But it should have come online." Barbara replied with a hint of light suspicion in her voice.

"On my way." said Batman.

"Looks like the parking garage below you is jammed open, but not enough for vehicles. You can access the generator from there." said Barbara and ended the transmission.

"You say that this spare generator you know of is inactive?" Ivy asked.

"Yes, but how can that be if we're-" Barbara said and stopped mid-sentence upon realization dawning on her.

"Oh no . . ." she said with worry.

"What's wrong?" Ivy asked.

"The second generator's inactive because some militia members have already made their way inside the station's garage and are tampering with the backup generator." she said.

"They're here?" Ivy asked.

"Only in the garage. If they destroy that generator too, returning the power will not be possible and we'll be in more trouble than we already are. That will surely play a large part in our demise at the hands of the militia." said Barbara.

"If that's true, then I should go and get rid of those soldiers before they succeed." Ivy asked.

"No, stay here. Batman would not want any interference or for you to get hurt again. Let him handle them." said Barbara.

Eventually, the power came back on. Batman had restored the building's electricity.

Barbara and Ivy saw the computer starting up again and minutes later, it was back online.

"Yes, it works again." said Barbara and she reconnected the computer to Batman's signal and was back to where she was.

"Oracle, the backup generator is online." he said to her.

"Good, let's get you out there. Head to the car and I'll . . ."

She stopped when she saw something very interesting and amusing at the same time on the computer.

"What? No way!" she exclaimed.

"What is it?" Batman asked.

"There's a a vulnerability in the militia's network. Idiots! I think I can hijack their drones." Barbara said with a grin.

Because of Barbara Gordon's abilities as a skilled hacker, the militia's chances of success just went south and Batman's went north.

"Good. Get ready for a fight." he said and returned to his duties.

Barbara then typed at her keyboard quickly to get started on her hacking idea.

"Will this mean victory for him?" asked Ivy.

"Positive. As large and dangerous as the militia may be, there's no such thing as a perfect military force because even high and powerful forces are open to errors and these guys have theirs. Like with business contracts, all technology has a loophole and I'm going to exploit theirs for Batman's benefit." Barbara explained.

Her computer showed Batman still inside the building's driveway tunnel as well as the network of the militia forces, open for her to hack.

"Let's hope he wins." said Ivy.

"He's Batman. He always wins. Ready Batman?" Barbara said to her and then to him.

"Ready Oracle." he said.

"I'll be out there fighting alongside you." she said and she and him began a combined countdown.

"5 . . ."

"4 . . ."

"3 . . ."

"2 . . ."

"1 . . ."

Barbara activated the garage door.

"Let's finish this." said Barbara as Batman drove his Bstmobile back onto the open streets, prepared for battle.

Ivy watched in silence as Barbara led Batman against the rampaging tanks, feeding him instructions on his targets, hacking them, giving words of encouragement.

Barbara Gordon was like a military commander and Batman was the soldier. In every battle like this one, there's a soldier doing the fighting and a commander telling him or her what to do because, due to the stress of combat, the soldier wouldn't know what to do if the commander wasn't there giving orders. By working together as a team, they accomplish more than either could on their own. Although Batman sometimes does succeed in missions by himself, but large conflicts like right now was one of a few exceptions where he needed help.

During the fighting, Barbara mentioned something about making Scarecrow pay for kidnapping her and her father and using them both as leverage against each other with deserving anger in her voice.

Minutes later, the fighting ceased and no more blasting sounds were heard.

"What happened? Did Batman win? Is he alright?" Ivy asked, breaking her silence.

"Yes!" Barbara said happily, much to Ivy's relief, and the computer wiz contacted him.

"All drones destroyed! We did it! No wait . . ." she said up until noticing something else happening now that ruined her happy mood.

A helicopter was seen flying over to the station's rooftop and was dropping off more militia troops.

"That's not good." said Ivy as she saw the screen that showed the live feed from above.

"Scarecrow's dropped infantry on the roof. They're going to bypass the security lock. I can hold them off, but not for long." said Barbara.

She typed again until she got what she wanted.

"Batman, I've got control of the security and utility systems on the rooftop. I can take the bastards out, you just set 'em up." she told him.

Barbara and Ivy watched the surveillance feed of Batman appearing on the station rooftop and fighting the soldiers by himself. Barbara helped out Batman by activating the traps on the roof which Batman used to injure and incapacitate some soldiers. He mostly used the traps on the large ones as they were tougher to take down than the regular ones.

Batman had finished with the first round of militia soldiers before a helicopter arrived and dropped off more and another fight ensured.

As Barbara was about to resume her duties, the elevator suddenly dinged, much to everyone's surprise.

When the doors opened, out stepped a few militia soldiers, armed and dangerous. A few simple foot soldiers and one heavily armored man with a large chaingun in his hands.

Their appearance caused the civilians to scream and panic, Barbara included though not actually screaming, and the police officers in there were prepared to shoot the intruders.

Unknown to Barbara, Ivy created, from her forearms, a set of twin vines with hard ball bearings at the tips. She held both vines in her hands and started jogging toward the soldiers. Since Ivy was healthy and clean again, she was now able to fight better.

As the chaingunner was about to open fire on everyone in the building, Ivy quickly lashed at the large man first with her vines like whips. She struck the chaingunner hard enough to make him drop his weapon to keep him from firing at anyone.

The other soldiers, who believed Poison Ivy to be dead earlier, were too stunned by the woman's presence to defend themselves as she attacked them next by slamming them against a wall and tripping their feet with her vines.

When they were down, Ivy used her vines to toss their weapons away with such strength, except the chaingunner's due to it being too heavy and being a risk to throw if it slammed into someone, while also ripping their mask helmets off with her hands and blew her pheromones on them the instant their faces were exposed.

In seconds, the defeated militia soldiers were now under her control as they were currently making goo-goo eyes at her.

"So beautiful." one said to her.

"I love you." said another.

Ivy ignored their comments and stayed focused.

"Don't worry everyone, I've got them. They won't hurt you anymore." Ivy said to the frightened people all around.

They gave no response except ones of aftershock and fear.

A few cops approached the scene, armed and ready.

"You're controlling them?" one of them asked.

"Yes. They aren't a threat as long as they're under my power." she said.

The militia soldiers stared at her like zombies.

"Are there any available cells left in this building?" Ivy asked the officers.

"There's a few left." said one of them.

"Lead the way. I'll come along so I can cure them of my pheromones once they're detained." said Ivy.

"As you wish." one of them said.

"Follow me." Ivy said to the brainwashed soldiers.

"Yes, Ivy. Whatever you say." they said dumbly and followed her to their destination.

The officers looked nervous as they walked with the militia soldiers next to them, but reminded themselves that Poison Ivy was controlling them, thus making them unable to attack, and she was working for Batman now.

The other detainees in the cells grew nervous when they saw Ivy again. They were utterly terrified of her.

Ivy stopped for a brief moment to address them.

"Anyone of you gentlemen have anything smart to say to me?" Ivy said to the prisoners to keep them at bay as she was in no mood to hear any insults aimed at her.

"No, Ivy! Nothing smart at all!" they said in fear.

"Good. I suggest that you keep it that way." she said and kept walking.

They approached an empty cell and one of the officers opened it.

"Get in." Ivy said to the soldiers and they obeyed without question.

When they were inside and the cell door closed shut, Ivy freed them from her control and the soldiers were back to normal.

"What the hell?!" one said in surprise.

"You're still alive?! Scarecrow killed you!" another questioned after seeing Ivy standing in front of their cell.

"She's a freakin' zombie!" another said.

With her job done here, Ivy began to walk back to rejoin Barbara, ignoring the militia soldiers' eruptive yelling and cursing.

As she walked, more screaming was suddenly heard from the main room and Ivy and the officers rushed back to see what the ruckus was.

When she made it back, she saw everyone staring and pointing at the chamber holding Kirk Langstrom. But he was not human-looking anymore. He had morphed back into his Man-Bat form and was screeching and smashing himself against the chamber's glass, trying to break out.

Everybody was terrified at the sight of the contained bat monster. What if he really broke out of his cell? Even some of the villains in the large cell were beginning to grow nervous. Unlike them, Man-Bat had no allegiance to anyone. He had no loyalty to anyone or anything whatsoever. He was driven only by the simple instinct to hunt and kill any helpless prey he could find, fly away in the face of danger and wait until the urge to kill and feed arose again.

 _I wonder if that cell truly is strong enough to contain him. I assumed it wouldn't with me previously, but him . . ._ Ivy thought to herself.

Suddenly, Langstrom was able to penetrate the glass and it cracked and shattered to pieces on the ground.

He was free!

Everyone screamed and ducked for cover or ran away while some officers aimed their guns at him out of training instinct, but held their fire due to people being around and not wanting to risk hitting anyone by mistake.

Man-Bat screeched and started to fly around, causing mass panic and going after anyone at random.

Someone tried to shoot Man-Bat only to be incapacitated when Man-Bat spat saliva at the person's face and eyes.

"My eyes! Oh god, I'm blind!" yelled the victim while rubbing at the afflicted area frantically.

Barbara grabbed the nearest object she could find to use as a weapon should the mutated scientist fly in her direction. All she got was a large book which was really a manual of police rules.

As the carnage unfolded, Man-Bat then spotted Barbara, much to her fear, and he flew in her direction.

Seeing what was about to commence, Poison Ivy quickly rushed right over there, summoning her vine whips again.

Man-Bat was getting closer to his target, but before he or Barbara could attack one another, the mutant scientist was suddenly grabbed and thrown away by Ivy's vines. He crashed against the cell that contained the super-criminals. It didn't shatter, but it did cause its occupants to jump out of surprise.

Man-Bat recovered and charged after Ivy in a fit of rage.

Ivy lashed her vines at him again, slapping him with overhanded and underhanded swings before restraining him in mid-air and pinned him down to the floor. She struggled to keep him in place as he thrashed violently, trying to free himself.

Barbara was worried for her because Man-Bat might free himself and attack Ivy.

Ivy, while still restraining Man-Bat, aimed a vine in front of his disfigured face and sprayed a misty chemical at him, releasing just a small amount to affect Man-Bat only and not anyone else inside.

Soon, Man-Bat was slowing his movements and within seconds, he was unconscious.

Ivy kept her vines on him until she was fully sure he was truly incapacitated.

When nothing else happened, she released him and retracted her vines.

Barbara wheeled herself toward the scene, seeing Ivy stare at the unmoving bat monster.

"He's unconscious, isn't he?" Barbara asked.

"Yes, I gave him a gas sedative." Ivy replied.

"How long will he be out?" Barbara asked.

"I drugged him to be out for about 48 hours. Two days. Long enough to find a new place to detain him in since he just destroyed his." Ivy said and the two women glanced at the now-shattered chamber.

Two officers approached the scene, cringing at the sight of Man-Bat, but relieved that he's knocked out.

"You alright, Miss Gordon?" one asked.

"Yes, I'm fine." she said.

"Where are we gonna put him in now? We can't lock him back in that chamber because . . . well, it's busted." one said.

"Actually, Dr. Langstrom could be placed in the interrogation room for the moment. It's not much, but as Ivy just said, he's not going to be active for two whole days, so he won't cause any problems until he wakes up tomorrow night." said Barbara.

The cops liked that idea and they carefully picked Man-Bat up and carried him away.

"Are you alright, Barbara? Any wounds or injuries?" Ivy asked Barbara.

"I'm fine. No wounds on me anywhere. Well, none from Langstrom anyway." Barbara replied, referencing her own scratches.

She then looked at Ivy with a face full of gratitude.

"You protected me from him before he was able to strike me down." she said.

"I couldn't stand to see you get hurt by Dr. Langstrom or those dimwit soldiers and I gave Batman my word to keep you safe during his absence and I don't wish to break that." said Ivy with sheer honesty.

"Thank you, Ivy." Barbara said gratefully and returned to her computer to finish where she left off. The incidents with the militia men and Kirk Langstrom kept her distracted from aiding Batman in his battle against the militia on the roof. She hoped her absence did not affect his performance above.

It didn't.

 _If only Scarecrow hadn't killed every plant in Gotham with that wretched toxin of his . . ._ Ivy thought bitterly. She was thinking this because she believed that if even one plant besides the ones within her body had survived the cloudburst radiation, or if the gas was never unleashed at all, the militia forces would not have stood a chance out there against her. The invaders would be defeated faster and Gotham would have been relieved of them sooner than later.

The fighting above soon ended because Barbara and Ivy saw on camera that the militia soldiers were all on the ground in defeat.

"He beat them." Barbara said.

"We're safe again." Ivy said.

"Yes, they won't be breaking into the GCPD building anymore." Barbara said.

While Barbara and Ivy were busy watching the fight between Batman and the militia on the computer, there was a confrontation going on between Aaron Cash and a man dressed in a fancy-looking business suit on the other side of the hall.

The suit-wearing man was Jack Ryder, a reporter for Gotham City's news stories and one of the most famous of the city's press members aside from Vicki Vale.

"You can't go out there, Ryder! It's too dangerous right now!" said Cash.

"I must. There's something interesting and newsworthy going on right now at the Lady of Gotham statue as I speak and I want to know what it is. It's my job as a member of the press to venture out for newsworthy stories for my company. It's also in the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, the 'Freedom of Press' part! You can't stop me from doing that! Didn't you pay any attention in school?" said Ryder.

"Legal rights or not Ryder, going out there at this time is suicide! Just wait until after this invasion thing is over and then you can pursue your story later. You're not exactly like Batman or his crime-fightin' friends. He even told you to stay put in here earlier. You really wanna risk your ass over a goddamn story right now?" Cash asked.

"Officer, if you don't step aside right now, I'll drag your sorry behind to court later on and sue the living crap out of you for denying me my First Amendment rights and for preventing me from doing my job and we both know who emerges victorious from that kind of legal battle. Do I make myself clear?" said Ryder defiantly.

Cash wanted to counter with something, but held back because Jack Ryder got him there. As stupid as the reporter was for what he wanted to do, Cash could not stop him and had to allow Ryder to proceed with his task or he and the department would be facing a class-action lawsuit by Ryder which he was allowed to do and the GCPD was going through enough problems as it is and could not handle any legal problems at this moment, especially from this man.

"Fine Ryder, it's your funeral and when Batman hears about this and saves your ass from whatever danger comes at you, I'm gonna be waiting here with a big heaping bowl of 'I-Told-You-So'." said Cash and stood down, allowing a path for Ryder.

"There. Was that so hard? Tell Batman where I'll be when he gets back." Ryder said snobbishly and walked past him.

"Ace reporter? More like 'Ace Retard'." Cash whispered.

"I heard that!" called out Ryder.

"You were supposed to." said Cash and he walked over to Barbara to tell her of this.

"Barbara." he said.

"Cash? What's wrong?" Barbara asked.

"It's Jack Ryder. He's done something really stupid." he said and told her.

When Barbara learned what happened with Ryder, she rolled her eyes in annoyance.

"I'll let Batman know when he has free time. Thanks for letting me know." said Barbara.

Cash nodded and walked away.

"Oracle, I've cleared the rooftop." Batman said when he survived the fight and called her.

"I know. I saw on the monitors. Good work." she said.

"How's everything inside?" he asked.

"Well, a few militia soldiers managed to break into the station during your fight, but they were subdued and are now sitting in a cell." said Barbara.

"I'm sorry for not preventing their break-in." he said.

"No worries. You couldn't have seen them slipping by, but we're safe. Also, Dr. Langstrom changed back into his mutant form and broke out of his chamber cell. He was either trying to escape into the city or kill anyone he could." she said.

"What?" he asked.

"But he failed and has also been subdued and is unconscious for the next 48 hours." she said.

"48 hours? How did you-?" he asked.

"Poison Ivy stopped him along with the militia intruders. She hypnotized them into imprisoning themselves and used her sleeping chemicals on Langstrom during a fight with him. She said she drugged him for two days until better containment for him can be found." Barbara said.

"Is Ivy alright?" he asked.

"She's fine. Here, I'll put her on for you." Barbara said and aimed the computer camera to show Ivy to him.

"Hello Batman. Thanks for stopping those militia men on the roof. Everyone inside is safe. I prevented Dr. Langstrom from harming Miss Gordon and everyone else here." she said.

"Did Langstrom try to hurt her?" he asked.

"Yes, but I stopped him before he could. I'm not entirely sure, but I believe the stress of the conflict outside and the breach must have triggered his transformation. That, or whatever you gave him earlier prior to his arrival didn't work or wore off." said Ivy.

"Thank you for protecting her, Ivy." he said.

"It was my pleasure, Batman." said Ivy.

"I also have news of my own. With the Arkham Knight gone, the militia has a new leader." he said.

"Scarecrow?" Barbara asked.

"Slade Wilson." he answered.

"What? As in 'Deathstroke'?!" Barbara asked in surprise.

"Yes. He's back and he's taken over as new commander of the Knight's militia, starting with the attack on GCPD." he said.

"I thought he doesn't take part in assassination jobs unless he's paid to do them. Like Deadshot, he too trades blood for money." said Ivy.

"I'm going to guess Deathstroke already received payment for this invasion otherwise he wouldn't be here helping cause all this chaos." said Barbara.

"He did. He admitted it to me through my communicator." said Batman.

 _"Yeah, I bet ol' Slade's as rich as you, Brucey-boy. For all I know, one of you could buy this country with all that dough in both of your pockets if you wanted to. It would be 'The United States of Bruce Wayne' or 'The United States of Slade Wilson'! Sounds catchy, wouldn't you say? I would have loved to have a country of my own, but I'd call it 'Jokertopia'. Oh yeah!"_ said Joker.

"How will you find him?" Barbara asked.

"He'll find me and I will take him down when he does." he said.

"Wasn't Deathstroke one of the bounty assassins who hunted you seven years ago during the Christmas incident?" Ivy asked.

"He was and he failed. I'm going after him right now." he said.

"Okay, but before you do that though, you might want to head over to the Lady of Gotham first." said Barbara.

"Why?" asked Batman.

"That reporter guy, Jack Ryder, recently left the station to follow up on a lead over there. Cash tried to stop him, but Ryder just started shouting about 'freedom of press'." Barbara said with a light hint of annoyance in her voice at the last part of her speech.

Batman rolled his eyes from hearing that. He gave Jack Ryder explicit instructions not to leave the police station, but it seems he ignored it and now he was open to random danger.

"I'll find Ryder and return him safely before he gets himself killed or worse, Oracle." said Batman and departed.

"Question: how come he addresses you as 'Oracle'?" Ivy asked her.

"It's . . . a name that was suitable for me when I started working for him after my paralysis accident. Think of it being similar to 'John Doe' or 'Jane Doe'. The codename is to keep me safe from his enemies who want to use me against him, which has already happened earlier unfortunately." Barbara answered.

"Makes sense." Ivy replied.

* * *

Batman later returned to the station with Jack Ryder safe and sound and brought along someone else nobody expected.

"Batman's back with Jack Ryder and it seems he's also brought an extra catch with him." Ivy said to Barbara and the computer genius turned around and saw both Ryder and an additional person in custody by Batman and the police.

It was Joseph "Deacon" Blackfire, Gotham's infamous religious man who took his beliefs way too seriously to the point of causing trouble.

Batman stuffed Blackfire inside the cage cell with the others. He ranted about God and other holy things, much to the annoyance of his new cellmates.

"You're going to be in here for a long time, Blackfire." Batman said to him.

"Child, these bars cannot hold me. When the time comes, God will dissolve them like the hot wax of a candle and I will be free." said Blackfire.

"I'd keep praying if I were you." Batman said sarcastically.

"Oh, I will. I'll pray for everyone, for all of Gotham's lost children. Especially you, Batman. I'd do one special just for you. We could have done great work together. God's work! If only you would open your heart and accept His love. There is still time to save your soul. We are made broken, my child. Only the Lord can save us!" said Blackfire.

Y _eah right._ Batman thought just as Joker's hallucination showed up again.

 _"You gotta hand it to Deacon 'Blackbeard'. Anything that gets the homeless working should be encouraged._ _Y'think this Blackfire's a real priest, Batsy? It's just, I owe Gotham Church an apology for that incident with the hydrochloric holy water. That was one hell of a baptism. Speaking of religion, I think your plant admirer's a Catholic because, a few days after the showdown between us back at Arkham, I heard one guard say that there was a Catholic priest visiting Ivy to perform Last Rites for her when she was close to dying from the TITAN strain she was infected with, courtesy of yours truly, of course. From what I've heard, she used hidden spores or something else plant-related to restore herself back to health. Perhaps that's where she got the idea for her draining seed thingy you used on Jason. As for that priest guy . . . I don't know what happened next. I don't know if he's alive or dead and frankly, I don't really care. I was locked up in some deep dark cell with only a hanging lightbulb to keep me company, so I was left out of what came next."_

Deacon Blackfire then began a few conversations with the other prisoners.

"This is our city, Deacon. We're the law around here." said Two-Face.

"Man's law is not equipped to deal with Gotham's injustices!" said Blackfire.

"Let there be light, Deacon! Easy, I can do that!" said Firefly.

"Cheap pyrotechnics do not scare me, child!" said Blackfire.

"Pyg on the cross, Pyg with nail, Pyg on cross, Pyg with nail!" said Pyg.

"From what hellish pit did _you_ emerge?" he said to Pyg, clearly disturbed by Pyg.

Not willing to listen to the verbal match going on anymore, Batman walked over to Barbara and Ivy.

"What's he doing here?" Barbara asked about Deacon Blackfire.

"He and his cult followers captured Jack Ryder and attempted to offer him as a sacrifice. I prevented that and brought them both here." he said.

"Did he say anything about Scarecrow?" Barbara asked.

"No. I don't think he has any ties to Crane whatsoever." he said.

"He doesn't. I never saw Blackfire at Crane's meeting. Was his behavior influenced by the toxin or is he always like that?" said Ivy about his behavior.

"Blackfire was unaffected by the gas, most likely due to his strong, religious beliefs." said Batman.

"To put it simply, he's always like that. Behavior-altering chemicals have nothing to do with Blackfire's personality. It's all his own creation and some people are mentally resistant to those kind of things, like Batman is to your pheromones." said Barbara.

"True." said Ivy.

"I see you have additional followers of your own besides the police, Batman." Blackfire called out from his cell, causing the vigilante, the hacker and the botanist to glare at him with looks that said "shut up".

"The paraplegic daughter of James Gordon and . . . Dr. Pamela Isley? Gotham's most infamous botanist? Well, I'll be dipped! I heard that you had departed from this world after that cloud of death rained down upon Gotham hours ago by that sinner, Scarecrow. But it seems that the Lord has spared you from death too early for a reason only He is aware of. This must mean that the Almighty Father has selected you to become another servant of Him in the future. You would make a fine addition into the cult of our all-knowing Father, child, so long as you abandon your practice of plant science for it is one of Satan's methods upon Man." Blackfire said to Ivy.

"Like hell I'll join him or stop my botany." Ivy whispered while rolling her eyes in embarrassment from the thought of being part of Blackfire's religious cult.

"You leave them out of this, Blackfire. They are not yours to manipulate for your worthless cause." Batman said with a warning in his voice.

"Not yet, but they will in time. They just do not know it for now." said Blackfire. "You know Batman, I could punish you through this sinful nation's legal system for stopping me from performing my rightful duty to God. After all, despite this nation diving more and more into the world of sin, it is my constitutional right to worship freely without interference or censorship from anyone, not that it can protect anyone from God's judgment in the end, and you, sir, violated my rights."

"You're right about a piece of that, Blackfire. You do have a right to religious freedom, everyone in this country does. All religions, even cultism such as yours, are perfectly legal and can't be trampled upon as stated in the First Amendment to the U.S. constitution. But you're also wrong at the same time because there are limitations to it. While you can't be denied of your right to worship, it doesn't mean you can kill in the name of your beliefs as you almost did to Mr. Ryder earlier. That's still murder, so technically there is no unlawful violation here. You're able to file a suit against me if you wish since that's also legal, but it will still fail for the aforementioned reasons because no judge in existence will ever favor your kind of case." said Batman.

"I may not like Batman one bit preacher, but he's got you there on the First Amendment part being limited and how the courts will never let you win. I was a lawyer at one point in my life, you know." said Two-Face. He still knew most laws due to his past working for it.

"I am well aware of your past profession, Mr. Dent, and offering sacrifices has been one of man's bound duties to the Almighty ever since we were put on this Earth by Him. Many of His prophets before me have done it and I was meant to as well. It is written in the Holy scriptures and, like my rights, you also violated that too and we all know what God does to those who break his holy laws. No legal system can outdo God's system no matter what." said Blackfire.

"Like Batman said Blackfire, religious freedom in this country does not include ritual sacrifices of people or animals. There's a big difference between being a religious devotee and being a mentally-deranged murderer. You're a combination of both and that's what makes you dangerous." said Barbara.

"Mr. Ryder was to be sent to face God's judgement for his many past sins, Miss Gordon. I was to be the one to deliver him to our holy Father and Gotham's so-called 'hero' standing beside you, defied the Lord of His command. Not even your 'superhero' status can prevent God's wrath upon you for your act of defiance, Batman. You and your friends must repent while you are still among the living or you too will be spending eternity facing torture and misery at the hands of the fallen one as everyone else here will one day for their sinning against God. Even you cannot capture and lock away God or Satan. They lock you away." said Blackfire.

"Can I put him to sleep like I did with Man-Bat? He's beginning to become bothersome to me." asked Ivy.

"I actually agree with her." said Barbara.

"Me too, but that won't be necessary. I'll be back with Slade." said Batman and he left to find Deathstroke.

Ivy hoped Batman would do well against Deathstroke. She's heard, and sometimes seen, what that man was capable of doing.

Barbara and someone else whom Ivy didn't know of nor could hear, instructed Batman during his later vehicular battle against Deathstroke and a few of his minions.

 **"Do you know what every guy who's fought with me and walked away has in common, Batman? I got them next time."** said the voice over the comms that Barbara knew came from Slade Wilson.

As the unseen battle commenced, Ivy then got an idea that would allow her to still help out despite being indoors.

 _Why didn't I think of this during the tank assault?_ She thought to herself.

"Barbara, tell Batman that I have a faster way of stopping Deathstroke." Ivy told her.

"You do?" Barbara asked.

"Yes, put him on for me." Ivy said.

"Batman, Ivy here says she has a way of stopping Slade." she said to him.

"Really? Tell me." he said.

Barbara handed her mic to Ivy and she placed it on her head and ear.

"Batman, while Crane may have destroyed my plants all over the city, I realized just now that his toxin could not have affected the plant life dwelling beneath the sea around Gotham. It missed them as it only focused on the surface. I can sense that they're still alive and I can connect with them. I was thinking that you get Slade and his tanks close to the bay areas, any place you can reach, and when that happens, all I have to do is telepathically link my mind to the plants in the water and have them assault tanks. It can save time and the trouble of fighting him." Ivy said.

"That's . . . not such a bad idea, Ivy. Okay, I'll lure Slade and his tanks near the ocean and when he's there, you attack him." he said.

"Deal. Just tell me when he's close to the ocean." Ivy said.

"Got it." he said and Barbara slid herself aside and watched as Ivy did her job.

Sometime during the battle, Batman has managed to lure his foes close to the ocean.

"Now Ivy!" he said.

"Here goes!" Ivy said and she closed her eyes and focused hard. She was able to telepathically see through the underwater plants and vines. She was also able to detect the enemy tanks, including Deathstroke himself, near the shorelines of the battleground.

With her senses, she got every plant she can control to spring to life and had them launch a surprise attack on the tanks.

 **"What the fuck?!"** Deathstroke was heard saying through Barbara's frequency.

Some were thrown away and were either totaled or blown to scrap.

"It worked. You've managed to destroy Deathstroke's tanks in seconds where it would have taken Batman minutes to do. Only Slade himself remains." said Barbara.

Ivy made the ocean plants wrap themselves around Slade's tank and suspend it upside-down in mid-air. Deathstroke was trapped now.

She then saw Slade exiting his tank and Ivy quickly grabbed him with a couple of extra vines before he could escape and wrapped him tight enough to completely immobilize him.

Through the ocean plants, Ivy saw Batman stop his car, exit and approach the scene and Ivy lowered the trapped mercenary low enough for Batman to knock him unconscious with a single blow to his masked face.

"Thanks Ivy. You've made my job quicker." he said to her via the plants.

Ivy made the vine inch, with Deathstroke still bound, toward the Batmobile, released Deathstroke in Batman's waiting grip, and watched him stuff the downed soldier inside the backseat, hop inside the driver's seat and drive away.

With her job done, Ivy retracted the plants back into the ocean and released her telepathic hold on them.

"Wow. I can't believe you did that." Barbara said.

"Neither could I." said Ivy.

She hoped that what she did would not give herself away to Scarecrow too early.

* * *

Batman came back to GCPD with Deathstroke in his grip, walked toward the cage and shoved the assassin inside.

"You think it's wise to put me in here with all these lesser warriors? You might not have any prisoners left when you return." said Deathstroke.

Batman silently closed the cell door.

 _"Gather 'round kiddies. Uncle Slade's got another tale from the trenches. Ask him to tell the one about the mass graves. It's a hoot!"_ said Joker.

"I hope whatever they paid you was worth it, Slade." said Batman.

Deathstroke looked and saw Ivy standing beside Barbara, neither woman looked back as they were at the computer.

"So Poison Ivy survived her gassing and you got her to fight for you. No wonder I lost back there. The chance to fight you is always worth it, Batman." said Deathstroke.

"I'm flattered." said Batman.

"You should be. When a man earns my respect, that means I do not rest. I devote all my energy, everything I have, to killing him! I'm going to make it my personal mission to kill you when I get out of here, Batman." said Deathstroke.

"Beauty is Pyg's specialty! Pyg can make you young again! Pyg can soften the scars!" said Professor Pyg to Deathstroke.

"I knew a guy in Hanoi. Used to make wallets out of dead Vietcong. You guys would hit it off." Deathstroke said to Pyg.

"Ever handled a flamethrower, old man?!" Firefly said to Deathstroke.

"Ever seen a napalm drop at night? Most beautiful thing in the world." said the assassin.

"You have killed, but your tally of death is nothing compared to the millions God has consigned to the fiery pit!" said Blackfire.

"My soul doesn't need saving, preacher man. I sold it a long time ago." he told him.

Rather than approach Ivy and Barbara again, Batman went to check on Jack Ryder first who was inside the other interview room different from where Ivy and Hatter were previously.

He had told Jack Ryder to leave Gotham with an escort earlier. The reporter refused and it almost cost him his life.

 _"You gonna rub it in his face, Bruce? I would if I were the one who saved him. He owes you big time!"_ said Joker.

"You were lucky, Ryder." he said when he saw Jack Ryder sitting at the room's desk, going through some papers.

"Thanks for saving me, man. I mean, I had it under control. It was all part of the act, you know. Getting up close and personal." said Ryder.

The idea of saving a man who intentionally and stupidly put himself at risk for the sake of his career irritated Batman. Still, he had to save him no matter how stupid Ryder's plan was. There were people who put themselves on the line too such as cops, military soldiers, paramedics, delivery workers, but Ryder's reason was out of selfishness, greed and stupidity.

"Next time, I'll leave you there." Batman said. He never meant it, he only said it to scare Ryder for his stupid decision to venture into Gotham when it was completely unsafe.

"Ha, cute. If I died, who would you talk to?" Ryder asked humorously.

"Be warned. I'm not saving you again tonight." said Batman firmly.

"What, this? Purely above aboard. Queen Industries launched a new company last week, Q-CORE. I'm doing a follow-up piece about the owner. A real sharp shooter." said Ryder.

"I'm sure." said Batman.

"I'll send you a copy. So, Batman. Book titles. I'm thinking 'Blackfire, Black Heart: Jack Ryder Uncovers A True Story Of Modern Day Human Sacrifice In Gotham'. Or maybe just 'The Cult'." Ryder asked.

"Not my problem, Ryder." he said.

"I'm going to be famous, Batman. Those sacrificial victims didn't die for nothing." Ryder replied.

Batman wanted to sock Ryder in the face for that remark. It sounded completely disrespectful to those who died by Blackfire's hand. He was implying that those whom Blackfire killed had to die in order to achieve his upcoming fame. But hurting him would raise questions from the station's occupants and he restrained his growing anger.

 _"This moronic reporter wants to make a book on the crap he went through with Blackfire after almost winding up as a sacrifice and he's using the poor sacrifice victims as inspiration for his idea? You should angrily tell him that he should show some goddamned respect to the dead like a real man. What a nutjob . . . and I should know 'cause I was one once and I still am in your head, Bats. I think you should get ahold of whatever leftover toxin Scarecrow might have stashed, infect Ryder with it and have it scare him into reconsidering his book plans or whatever stupid thing he tries in the future like tonight. He'd probably shit and piss in his pants if that happened! Hoo-hoo-hoo! That would be so hilarious!"_ said Joker.

Disturbed by Ryder's idea, Batman left the room and regrouped with Barbara and Ivy.

"I'm almost close to Scarecrow." he said.

"Good. There's just one more obstacle to take care of before dealing with Crane." said Barbara.

"Riddler. He said he'd face me if I first solved all of his bothersome riddles hidden throughout the entire city and now that I have, he has to make good on his promise. But I'm going to need some help with him and Selina's long gone now." said Batman and he looked at Ivy.

"What?" Ivy asked in confusion. Barbara wondered the same thing.

"Ivy, now that you're healthy again, how would you like to help me apprehend Riddler?" he asked her.

"You want me to come with you to catch Nygma?" Ivy asked.

"Certainly." he said.

"Alright. I could use the exercise to try my new healthy form out. When do we leave?" Ivy said.

"Right now." he said and walked out of the building with Ivy following him.

 _"Whoo-wee! The new Dynamic Duo of Batman and Poison Ivy! You need her because, you know, you ditched Robin the Boy Wonder. I can't wait to see how 'Salad-Girl' will do against Riddler. Maybe she'll give him an itchy riddle to solve. Get it, 'itchy'? Because of her ability to make people break out into hives or have serious itching with her toxic touch like she did with Cobblepot earlier? Ah, you get me, Bats! Maybe you should give her a cape and mask to wear just like you and your other super-friends do, except Nightwing and Catwoman, of course. They don't wear capes 'cause it's not their thing._ _"_ said Joker.

Batman was starting to grow irritated and weary of Joker's hallucination popping up every time. He wondered if Ivy could help get rid of his problem with her knowledge and abilities when this was over.

When they made it outside, Ivy got into the backseat again, Batman got into the driver's seat and the two took off into the city.

They were going after Edward Nygma.

* * *

 **Finally, another chapter completed. What do you think? Good or bad? Half of what you've read is re-written material I removed from my last chapter because I gave some of the plot details too early.**

 **Up next is Riddler and Ivy will be joining Batman again for the upcoming fight against him. How will it go?**

 **I hope you all had a good X-mas and a Happy New Year. I know I did. I was gone for a while on holiday break and I had little access to my laptop. I got a bass guitar for X-mas and I've been playing the hell out of it since. My fingers are kinda sore as I type this. I wonder how the hell other pro bassists tolerate that kind of pain?**

 **With the exception of the Deathstroke battle, I skipped most of the fights Batman has with his enemies because I didn't want to spend too long in writing them and focus on Ivy again. We all know how the battles ended in the game anyway, so I didn't bother adding them, unless it involves Poison Ivy.**

 **The scene where the soldiers breach the GCPD is what happens if you die during the tank invasion scene.**

 **Ivy's "vine whips" are borrowed from "Injustice 2". She has a move that lets her whack enemies with a vine like a whip or mace. Though I have to admit that she is hard to control in that game. A fan of my fics admitted it to me and I agreed with that person. I can't control one of DC's interesting characters in my favorite fighting game . . .**

 **I'm now also the new owner of a kitten I found near my home. It was cold outside and the kitten was shivering and so I invited it in my home for warmth and snacks. The cat gobbled them up like mad. I later took it to a vet and had it examined for illnesses, injuries or tracking chips in case somebody else owned it. None came true and I decided to adopt the cat myself. I've yet to decide a name for it.**

 **I'm almost done with this fic. Just a few more chapters left and I even have a sequel in mind after this story ends, but it's to be a mini-sequel rather than a full one. I've never done sequels before.**

 **I'm also thinking about bringing back my "2 endings" idea for this fic. One where Batman's unmasked as in the game and one where it doesn't happen.**


	8. Riddle Me This

**Now that you've seen how Batman beat the Knight (my version anyway), it's back to the battle for the GCPD headquarters. Time for a round against Riddler.**

* * *

The Batmobile rode through the city streets, zapping any leftover thugs and criminals that got in the way, plowing into, and shooting at, enemy vehicles.

Inside, Poison Ivy heard the shrieks and pained grunts of every enemy that got zapped by the vehicle's shock system and felt lightly satisfied by their pain. She felt they deserved to get hurt for working with one of the two men who killed her precious plants and causing all this destruction.

At last, the car arrived at the abandoned Gotham Orphanage building. Batman got out of the car first and pressed a button to release Poison Ivy.

"We're here." he said.

Ivy got out of her seat and took a five second stretch.

"This is where Riddler's hiding at?" she asked upon seeing the building.

"Yes. He's using this building as his base of operations. He held Catwoman hostage here to lure me into playing his puzzle games and he's still inside, waiting for me after solving all his puzzles." he said.

"What a dump. For a so-called genius, he's quite unhygienic when it comes to his hideouts. Will I get to fight him head-on?" Ivy asked.

"I was thinking that you act as backup in case he cheats in his 'game' which, knowing him, he will, so we must be prepared for that. As stated before, he's unaware of your survival and a surprise appearance from you could prove useful in his defeat." he said.

"Fine by me." said Ivy.

Batman scanned the building for a way for Poison Ivy to slip through. Riddler might see her if she came in through the door like him and he needed the element of surprise to bring Riddler down faster. Good thing he parked the car outside of the views of Riddler's hidden cameras that Batman was able to see. They were standing in a blind spot.

He saw a few vent shafts leading into the orphanage building and found one closer to them both.

"There are a few openings up near the rooftop that lead to the main hall of the orphanage. Use those to slip inside the undetected. He has a couple of cameras installed near the main door and if you enter through there like me, he'll see you and our chances of catching him with a surprise attack will be longer or lost." he said.

"Alright Batman. Let's do it." said Ivy.

He wrapped one arm around her waist, something she secretly enjoyed but kept hidden from him, and used the other arm, holding his grapple gun, to aim and shoot at the part of the orphanage he desired. He and her reached the part and found a vent opening, just as he intended.

"Crawl inside, find a path to the main area of the building and wait for my signal to strike." he told her.

"Alright. Sorry I cannot produce more draining seeds for you to use." she said.

"I won't be needing any for this fight. Now go. I'll see you inside." he said.

Ivy smiled lightly and proceeded to crawl inside the shaft while Batman swung away and entered through the door.

As Ivy crawled her way through, she sensed something she didn't expect.

She detected plant life hidden somewhere inside the orphanage.

 _How can that be? I thought the gas wiped out all surface plants._ Ivy thought.

Putting her curiosity aside, this discovery gave Ivy another idea now. She thought of using the plants to handle Riddler like she did with Deathstroke.

Ivy then heard the sounds of machinery coming from inside the orphanage as well as the voice of Riddler.

"Well, Dark Knight, it seems you have earned the right to die at my mechanical hands. But let us be clear, we do not meet as equals. In fact, you literally have not a hope of victory. I wish I could say that I have found this one-sided rivalry of ours intellectually stimulating. But in truth, I grew bored of you long ago. Killing you here will finally liberate me to engage in more edifying pursuits. Goodbye detective. You will be neither missed nor remembered." he said.

 _I need to move fast before I miss my cue!_ She thought and resumed crawling, speeding up her movements in hopes she won't be late for her signal to attack Riddler.

Ivy saw a slip opening on a vent side and she approached it and got a better look.

She saw Batman dealing with Riddler and his army of robots with Riddler himself piloting a large battlemech which was surrounded by an green energy shield, leaving him guarded from all physical attacks!

 _My god . . ._ Ivy whispered to herself upon seeing the battlemech.

There were so many robots surrounding Batman as he fought them all on his own. Ivy hoped he would call for her now because it looked as if he stood no chance against that army of robots.

"Time for a change!" said Riddler.

 _What's Nygma doing?_ Ivy asked herself as she saw Riddler's mech aim one of its arms at Batman and start to glow a green color.

 _He's going to shoot him with an energy blast!_ Ivy thought with wide eyes and a look of worry on her green face.

"Ready to be vaporized?" Riddler asked as he fired his mech's energy beam at Batman.

He missed and only hit a couple of his own robots, much to Ivy's relief as she sighed.

As much as Ivy wanted to spring into action, she still chose not to disobey Batman's order even though he was outnumbered and would reach exhaustion at any time if this kind of fighting resumed. Batman kept her out of sight for good reason.

"This is the end! My apotheosis!" said Riddler. Now he was starting to sound more insane than ever before.

While the fighting went on, Ivy scanned the area telepathically for those plants she detected earlier. They lay hidden beneath the main battleground. She figured that once the timing was right, she would unleash them upon Riddler's robots and battlemech.

"Can you keep up?" Riddler asked mockingly.

"Come on, Batman! You can do it!" Ivy whispered.

"You are bested! You are cornered! And you are mine!" Riddler yelled as his robot army kept coming after Batman.

Batman smashed two more bots.

"I'll atomize you!" Riddler yelled as he aimed and fired another energy beam at Batman.

Ivy bit her lip. She didn't know how much longer she could take waiting while watching the man she loved being surrounded and shot at. Why was Batman hesitating on unleashing her at Riddler?

As the battle waged on, another voice was heard and it sounded female and familiar to all three people inside the building.

"Sorry Eddie, but it looks like you're cheating to me." said the voice.

Ivy couldn't see from her vent spot, but she recognized that voice.

It was Selina Kyle, Catwoman, and she leaped down from above and landed on top of a Riddler-bot that stood in front of Batman where she proceeded to tear its head off, destroying it, allowing Ivy to see her better.

 _She's back?_ Ivy thought.

"NO! What are you doing here!? This is not your fight, Cat!" Riddler said angrily.

"Eddie, sweetie. You invited me, remember? And then you tied me to a chair." said Catwoman.

"You didn't have to come." Batman told her.

"And you act like I'm ungrateful." Catwoman replied.

"Fight like you have half a brain!" Riddler said and proceeded to attack Catwoman.

With Catwoman joining in the fight, she and Batman were able to fight off the robots faster. Sometimes, they even performed dual takedown moves together on them.

"Every blow, sweet vengeance!" Riddler taunted as he lunged at Catwoman.

"Don't feel left out!" Catwoman said as she wrapped her whip around the neck of one robot and gave a hard tug, ending the bot. Batman grabbed a robot, twirled it around and snapped its head. While he avoided killing people with attacks like that, the robots were different. They were non-living machines, so technically, his no-kill rule didn't apply to the bots.

"Your anti-intellectual oppression ends here!" said Riddler as his robots kept reviving themselves and returning to the battle.

 _That man talks too much._ Ivy thought in annoyance. She battled people who did not boast or gloat this much.

"You shall all be ashes!" Riddler said and fired another beam, this time at Catwoman.

She dodged and picked up another robot and hurled it at Riddler. This, or the energy beam a few seconds ago, caused Riddler's mech shield to drop temporarily and he was wide open for physical punishment.

"My shield! I cannot be beaten!" Riddler said as Batman approached the machine and delivered a few hard punches to Riddler. He then tried to pry him out of his mech, but Riddler quickly grabbed a lever and pulled it hard,

"No, no, no! My plan! My plan!" he cried out as one of the mech's arms lunged at Batman.

He dodged and flipped back onto the battlefield and Riddler's shields returned and protected him from harm once again.

"You can't win! I have anticipated every eventuality!" Riddler said as Batman and Catwoman got back to fighting the robots.

"Let's not waste any time here!" Catwoman said and she and Batman performed another double takedown on a robot.

Riddler fired another energy beam at them and missed again.

This drained his shield again.

"You cheated! I will forcibly extract a confessional!" Riddler said as Catwoman repeated what Batman did earlier and leaped onto the mech's front and let Riddler have it with her claws.

"Get off you meddlesome Cat!" Riddler replied and shook her off with his mech's arms.

"This is embarrassing, you two. Really." he said.

Then Riddler did something Batman had expected earlier. He typed in a command on his mech's computer system and soon, all robots turned a different color besides blue and red. This made them became impenetrable and surrounded by electrical shielding. They were now almost impossible to strike with just melee moves.

"HA! Now you have zero chances of victory against me, you imbeciles! I have won!" Riddler declared proudly.

"I knew you would cheat!" Batman said as he dodged a bot that he was now unable to punch or kick without risk of being shocked. Instead, he threw a batarang at it and the object got lodged into the bot's skull.

"Told ya." Catwoman said as she took out her whip and lashed out at the robots.

"You two cheated first! It's only fair that I return the favor with my ultimate, last resort card! To hell with the rules! I will beat you!" said Riddler.

"Great! Now how the hell are we supposed to destroy all these robots without them zapping us like bugs?!" Catwoman questioned as she avoided the robots who tried to touch her.

"You can't, Catwoman! That's the idea! Why do you think I called this my 'resort card'? It's over! You two have lost!" Riddler said as he fired another beam at them, missing again.

"You are far from being right, Nygma, because you're not the only one here who came with a last resort method!" Batman said.

"What are you talking about, Dark Knight? You have nothing that can withstand me and you have nobody to help you aside from your weak feline friend who's doing a poor job!" Riddler asked.

"Guess again! NOW!" Batman called out.

 _Showtime._ Ivy thought and she used her telepathy to summon the plants under them and soon, large sprouts of vines and sticks emerged from the ground like flowers.

"Hey, what gives?!" Riddler questioned in surprise.

"Hello Edward!" said Ivy in her scary voice, the same one she used at the asylum when she grew powerful from the TITAN strain.

All three combatants looked around and saw the plant metahuman on top near her vent shaft.

Batman grinned lightly while Catwoman and Riddler were stunned at what they were seeing.

"Red?!" Catwoman asked in shock.

"Pamela Isley?! How are you here?! You died from Scarecrow's toxin! I saw it! All of Gotham saw it!" Riddler said aloud in disbelief.

"I survived and now I'm going to stop you." Ivy said as her vines ripped through the robots. Their electric shields were useless against the plants as they attacked.

Riddler shot another beam at the plants and his shield collapsed again.

"No!" he yelled.

Ivy then plucked Riddler from his mech via her plants and slammed him onto the ground, wrapping his feet with plants.

"Unhand me, you mad botanist!" he demanded while struggling to free himself.

"Technically, she's not using any hands, Eddie." Catwoman said and she and Batman knocked him unconscious together with a boot and fist to the face and Ivy released him and had a plant lift her down.

The battle was over.

"Good job, Ivy." said Batman.

"Thanks." she said.

"You're still alive, Red? I . . . I can't believe you survived that gas cloud attack. You're immune to poisons and diseases, but I never thought that cloud chemical could have taken you down. I, like everyone else, saw and heard what happened to you and I thought you were gone for good." said Catwoman.

"Batman saved me before I could die and helped me recover. You really don't want to know how painful the toxin infection was, Selina." said Ivy.

Batman scooped up Riddler and hoisted him over his shoulder fireman-style.

"Let's go." he said and he went for the exit with Catwoman and Poison Ivy behind him.

"And the battlemech device?" Ivy asked.

"I'll see to it later." said Batman.

They walked back outside and Batman placed Riddler inside the backseat.

Ivy was busy surveying the area for anything harmful against her and Batman, wondering if Riddler set any traps around.

"'Thanks Selina, for the daring, last-minute rescue. It was very heroic'." Catwoman said sarcastically at Batman's lack of verbal gratefulness.

"It was under control." Batman said while looking at her.

Catwoman giggled at that.

"Sure it was, otherwise you wouldn't have brought Red with you as backup against Eddie in case he decided to cheat at his own game. Now be a good damsel and bestow a kiss on your gallant hero." said Catwoman.

While Ivy wasn't looking, Catwoman tried to lean in for a kiss, but Batman held her back. She swiped at him, either trying to slap him or make him react because, either way, Batman grabbed her hand.

"Play nice." he told her.

"You're not playing at all." she said.

"No, I'm not. Not anymore." he said.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Catwoman asked.

Batman turned around, making Catwoman nervous. Motions like that usually meant bad news.

"It means that this may be the end, Selina. It means we can't . . . I can't . . ." he said, looking at her again and back. He was considering the fact that he would lose and die in battle at some point in his future, so he was saying this in case that time came sooner.

This caused the cat burglar to worry.

"I will see you again, right?" she asked while approaching him. She didn't want to see him retire after tonight.

"If Scarecrow wins tonight, no one will. If I die in battle, Gotham needs something more, something worse, to defend her. She needs a new myth, a legend more powerful than I can be right now. A legend that can only rise from the ashes of the Batman." he said. He was saying this because, like all conflicts, there was a 50 percent chance of never returning due to either imprisonment or death and he felt that his chances of survival may drop sooner or later and and if that happened tonight or any other night, he needed to say what he was telling her now in case he was unable to.

Catwoman turned him around.

"Some things you can't do alone, Bruce." Catwoman said, that last part under her breath so Ivy could not hear. She knew who he was under the mask, but refused to say because they were standing on grass so, in any distance, she can still hear via the plants.

 _How did she-?_ Batman began to think before Catwoman, after checking to see if Poison Ivy was watching and saw her still occupied with her inspection, suddenly leaned in for a kiss.

Batman who, in turn, and without Ivy's knowledge, kissed her back. He figured he owed her that for some of the good thing she did for him in the past.

Their kiss lasted four seconds before they released each other.

"And some things you have to." he said and turned to walk toward his car.

"Call if you need me." said Catwoman.

Batman stopped for a brief moment and said, "I won't." before continuing.

"I know. I just wanted to say it." Catwoman said disappointingly.

Then Poison Ivy appeared, finished with her inspection.

"No traps so far. My guess is that Edward was too focused on getting you to bother building any traps outside the orphanage. For a so-called smart man, he's not very bright on everything." she said.

"For sure. Our job here is done, let's get him to the station." Batman said.

Ivy was about to proceed with her task of asking Catwoman about her plant from last year, but decided on putting it aside for later. Now didn't seem like a good time to question her due to the crisis going on throughout Gotham and besides, she knew Selina wouldn't leave Gotham because of the riches and goodies that inhabited the streets and she didn't want Batman to think she'd ditch him the second she was by herself and violate her trusting building process. She decided to speak to her later when everything died down and was sorted out.

Seeing the seat, Batman knew what had to be done even though he didn't like it himself.

"Sorry Ivy, but can you sit there and watch over him during the drive back to GCPD. I'm afraid I don't have a passenger seat in the car's cockpit for you." he said.

Ivy mentally shuddered at having to do what he was asking, but out of her new respect for the Dark Knight, she agreed.

"Alright, but if he does or says anything to annoy me, I'm putting him to sleep." she said.

"Fine by me. I find him annoying too, so go ahead if he does. Just don't poison him." Batman said.

"I won't." Ivy said.

The extra seat came out and Ivy sat in it. To make sure Riddler didn't try anything in case he woke up during the ride, Ivy had her vines bind the man tightly to his seat. It closed shut, Batman got into the driver's seat, started the vehicle and drove away.

"Red working with Barman? That's . . . unexpected. What's her game, here?" Catwoman said and fled into the night to either loot some more or to think by herself to process all she had seen.

While driving, Batman asked how things were back there and Ivy said things were fine.

But then, Riddler was startled awake.

"Where am I? What's happening to me?" Riddler asked, looking around and saw a single light shining inside.

The minute he saw Poison Ivy sitting beside him, he panicked and saw that he was bound tight by her vines.

"What's she doing here with me? Why am I bound by plants?" he asked.

"You're a smart man, Edward. I'm sure you'll figure it all out." said Batman.

"I don't like sitting next to you either, Edward, but I'm here to make sure you don't do anything stupid." she said.

"No, no, no! You cheated! Catwoman cheated! Poison Ivy was never a contestant in the first place! She was supposed to be dead and yet she somehow survived Scarecrow's gassing of the city and you brought her anyway! Both women stole my victory from me!" Riddler complained.

"A fight I couldn't win. That doesn't even fit your definition of 'playing fair'." said Batman.

"He's got you there, Edward." said Ivy.

"He does not 'have me', Plant! It WAS fair! If you weren't able to bypass the robots' multilayer encryption, decipher their unique operating system and reprogram them in mid-battle, that doesn't mean you get to call in assistance!" Riddler bellowed.

"You need help, Nygma." said Batman, rolling his eyes in annoyance.

"I never need help with ANYTHING! Neither of us have superhuman abilities, but Dr. Isley here does and you used her as your advantage! That's what 'cheating' means, you cape-wearing, mistake of nature!" said Riddler.

"You rigged your robot toys to make it impossible for Batman and Selina to fight them and you because you feared losing and did whatever you could to win. That is the real cheating. It's like an able-bodied person challenging a quadriplegic person to a combat sporting match. That is unfair and so was what you did back there. It's a good thing Batman brought me along because he knew you would pull that kind of stunt off and he was right." said Ivy.

"Oh, who asked you, you delusional wo-" Riddler said before Poison Ivy sprayed sleeping gas at him, rendering him unconscious.

""Much better." she said.

"Agreed." said Batman as he kept driving.

The car stopped when they reached the station, Batman hopped out and activated the backseats, releasing Ivy and Riddler.

"Should I wake him up?" Ivy asked as she released Riddler from her vines.

"Yes. I don't want to carry him." he said and she obeyed and reversed her sleeping chemicals' effects and, in seconds, Riddler woke up from his slumber.

"How long was I out?" he asked.

"A minute. I just barely revived you. Be grateful I didn't poison you to death when I could have." said Ivy.

"Out you go, Nygma." Batman said and opened the straps to free them and he picked Riddler up by the arm and hoisted him to his feet.

"Ha! I could have brought me here twice as quickly." he bragged as Batman walked inside with Riddler in his grip and Ivy followed behind.

They eventually made it in the inside where all three were greeted by Aaron Cash.

"Well, riddle me this: What's green, proud and ass-kicked all over?" he said, mocking Riddler's mannerisms.

"How exceedingly droll. I won't be needing a lawyer, you jumped-up security guard! I will represent myself!" Riddler said to him with a smug look on his battered and bruised face.

 _I doubt anyone's gonna want to defend you, moron. If I weren't on duty right now, I'd beat the holy hell outta you for what you did last year._ He thought as Batman led Riddler to the holding cell, opened the door and tossed him inside with the other felons.

Riddler turned around to face Batman and Ivy.

"You forget, you bothersome Bat. Every time you overcome my puzzles, I learn that little bit more about you. Soon enough, there will be a riddle that leaves you dead! And you, Dr. Isley. I am very surprised that you would work alongside the very person that you always say you hate. All those 'Batman is a disgrace to nature' rants you made before are now flushed down the metaphorical toilet Why the change of heart?" he said as Batman closed the gate, sealing the maniac genius inside with the rest of the city's villains.

"Other than Scarecrow causing mayhem with his gas and nearly killing me, I've lost interest in fighting Batman these days, Edward. It's gotten annoying, like you." Ivy said.

"I would have won if you had not interfered, Dr. Isley." said Riddler.

"Regardless of whether or not you rigged your robots, you were never going to win, Nygma." said Batman.

"Tut, tut, Batman. In your incessant quest for justice, you've just deprived this city of its one, true genius." said Riddler.

"I'm sure we'll cope." said Batman.

"Cope, yes. But also regress. My puzzles are the whetstone with which to sharpen your intellect. Keep me in here and let your mind turn to mush. It will be all the easier when we reconvene." said Riddler and he turned his back to them and faced his fellow supervillain inmates.

"With him locked up, that leaves Crane as the final target, right?" Ivy asked Batman as they inched away from the cage.

"Yes." he said.

"How are you going to take him down?" she asked,

"He's been hunting me all night, wanting to reveal myself to the world, so perhaps I can draw him out." said Batman.

They made it outside the station again where the Batmobile was parked.

"Any idea where he could be? I'm fairly certain he isn't at the same place where the meeting happened. I wouldn't stay in the same place after launching an invasion myself if I were in his shoes." Ivy asked.

Before Batman could answer, he was contacted by Barbara and Cash through his video gauntlet.

"Batman, there's a lot of people in here looking to thank you, both of you, and I'm one of them. It looked bad for a minute there." said Cash.

"Thanks Arron, but you don't need to . . ." Barbara began to say until she took a look at her computer. "Oh god . . ."

"What is it?" Batman asked.

"I think Scarecrow's at . . . at another certain location of yours." Barbara said, being careful not to say anything secretive for Poison Ivy to hear. "Dad's voice was just used to gain access."

Batman knew what place she was talking about.

"Pull up a surveillance feed." he said.

"I've tried and I can't get ahold of Robin. He was in there, right?" Barbara said.

 _Crap!_ Batman thought, feeling bad about leaving him in there. This made him a vulnerable target for anyone now.

"Don't worry. I'm on my way." said Batman and he turned around and made for the Batmobile.

"Should I come with you? I could be of use for whatever you're facing next." said Ivy.

Batman thought about whether or not to take her with him to his other secret base of operations. Other than to check on Robin's status, Harley Quinn was still locked away in there and he figured that, with Poison Ivy now on his side, she can perhaps calm Harley down and try to further influence her away from her crime life since she was all the jester woman had left in the world who really cared about her. It'd be another less supervillain to worry about in the future and Poison Ivy was one of them now.

He would need her assistance for this one.

"Alright you can come along." he said.

While they walked back to the Batmobile, Joker paid another visit to Batman via his thoughts.

 _"Good for you, Bats! Eddie doesn't need psychiatric help. No, no, no. Beat 'em up. Lock 'em up. That's the best medicine. Oh, and congrats to the plant doc for her help in catching him. That little stunt Nygma pulled back there was unsportsmanlike conduct. He always bragged about beating you fair and square and yet, he decides to pull a fast one just when he was gonna lose. That was not 'fair and square' at all! What a baby and he would've gotten away with it too if it weren't for your two meddling lady friends! You going to take Ivy to your movie studio shelter, Bats? If so, then perhaps you should leave her with my dear Harley. They could use some catching up after spending all night experiencing chaos. It'd be a hoot to see Ivy try convincing Harley to return to the boring mind doc that she was before she met me. It's be like that famous movie where What's-His-Name convinces his villainous father to be good again, minus the duel with those swords of theirs, of course. I loved those films when I was younger! You think it can work for Harley like you did with Ivy? We'll have to wait and find out for ourselves, won't we Bruce-y?"_

Batman and Ivy got into the Batmobile and drove away to the movie studios.

* * *

 **Sorry this took long, ladies and gents. I finally got this out after months of waiting! So . . . whaddya think? A few things held me back such as cat-sitting, COD WWII and Metal Gear obsessions, writer's block, etc. I also think I made my kitty addicted to treats and now she meows for them every 5 minutes. What have I done?**

 **With Riddler now beaten and jailed, Scarecrow is the final target left standing. How will it all go down?**

 **About the double ending idea, as you can guess, one will be where Scarecrow succeeds in revealing Batman's identity to the world like in the game while the other will be where he fails and Bruce's secret is safe. Hmm, I wonder which ending will be the real one here . . . it's SOOOO hard to figure out.**

 ***taps foot like a rabbit while thinking***

 **Anyone get the movie reference Joker made?**

 **Enjoy and hope for more.**


End file.
